


A Bridge has two sides - and Mother has two Daughters

by The_Frozen_Guy



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coda, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 43,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Frozen_Guy/pseuds/The_Frozen_Guy
Summary: Arendelle has been saved.Northuldra and the Enchanted Forest liberated.Anna is to be Queen, Elsa is the Fifth Spirit.Everything seems to have been tied up neatly, orderly and precisely in Elsa's mind ... so why is Ahtohallan calling her?
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	1. Where the North Wind meets the Sea...

_‘Where the North Wind meets the Sea, there’s a river, full of memory._

_Come, my darling, homeward bound._

_When all is lost, then all is found…’_

Ahtohallan called her. 

Riding across the Dark Sea on the back of the Water Spirit, Elsa, the former Queen of Arendelle and now Fifth Spirit of the Enchanted Forest only had to close her eyes to feel it, just as she could feel the wind ripping past her face and smell the spray of salt from the water around her.

It didn’t call through her mother's voice as it had once though. It was something new - _she_ had become something new. Something different.  
But a _good_ different!  
Now, she was free and in her very soul she could feel the call. Gentle, _soothing_ , seductive and constant. No longer a voice worrying and pulsing and pressing and _pulling_ against her magic until she felt like she was about to explode...  
No, now a part of her was forever a part of Ahtohallan … and a part of Ahtohallan was forever a part of her.   
She was calling to _herself_ … and thus she all but flew across the Dark Sea.

_Not so Dark today..._

Elsa exalted in the bright sunshine as she opened her eyes again. The treacherous, crashing sea that had almost killed her several times had vanished with her ascension. The memory of that awful fight with the Water Spirit -upon which she now rode- making her shiver. Remembering her lungs bursting for air as she was pushed under the water again and again and _again_ , desperately fighting to stay alive. Helpless and unable to bring her magic to bare as she had with the Wind and Fire spirits.  
Not until she had desperately stopped trying to fight it and tried - in desperation she admitted - to _ride_ it. Harnessing it and moving with it… and at that moment, a connection had been made as they started to move _together_. Then, the seas suddenly calmed into the same glacial stillness she found now.

But a part of her couldn’t _help_ but wonder … did that mean the Water Spirit had been responsible for the impassable sea for all these years in its wild, angry state? 

And … did that mean _it_ had killed her parents?

She didn’t ask the question of the Nokk through the connection they now shared. Partially because she wasn’t sure if it would -or could- answer her.   
Partially because she was afraid of the answer. 

She didn’t fear the Nokk itself of course. The events inside Ahtohallan had linked her to it and the other spirits in a way she still didn’t understand...but…

_No._ She told herself firmly, taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes again, to suck up the fear … and slowly _let it go._ Sometimes, the past _was_ best left in the past. Now she was only looking _forward_ \- as the freedom was hers to do so.

Her smile returned in full force as she opened her eyes to take in the glory of Ahtohallan as they arrived. She slid off the Nokk as it came to a halt at the water's edge, turning to face it and touching her head to its own, sending her wordless thanks and respect as one spirit to another as she let her power flow through and into it. She felt it’s joy as it shifted back into its liquid form, prancing back into the water before leaping into the air. She laughed at its antics before it crashed back into the sea with barely a ripple and dissipated into the great body of water, the spirit becoming an ocean as the ocean became a spirit...

_Now where had that thought come from?_ Elsa wondered idly, before dismissing it with a smile, simply wishing the spirit well. 

Instead, she turned to start up the slope of the glacier; the place of legend where the North Wind met the Sea. The river full of memory winding down to meet them. At peace and relaxed, her powers flowed out silently without any restraint or suppression, nor even active use. It was like breathing; she could control her magic just as she could control her lungs when she chose to, but otherwise, _here_ , her magic just … breathed on its own. A state of relaxation she hadn’t really ever felt anywhere except her Ice Palace - but even that couldn’t compare to this. Her powers flowing out and blending into the aura of magic that radiated from this place naturally, whispers of welcome tingling across her soul as she slowly made her way up. Her wispy white cape flowed behind her in the gentle but steady breeze as she looked around; marveling at how this place _shined_ under the sun. At how different it looked in the light of day. At peace. 

The first -and only other- time she had come here, in the night, she had been …

_Exhausted_ from her trip and fight with the Water Spirit, yet _exiliterated_ as she had never been before as her journeys end approached.

_Uncertain_ of who she would find, but at the same time absolutely _certain_ of her path, every step she took almost predestined as she made her way through the glacier deeper and deeper, unerringly, the lights flowing and glowing around her.

_Driven_ as she had heard the voice strongly then, not simply as a distant sound but as _power_ in the very air, filling the night as she dove into the very source of magic itself. Feeling her own magic _resonating_ with it, _knowing_ that the Fifth Spirit was _here_ and all the answers she had been desperately waiting for, for all of her life, were finally in her grasp…

Not the answer she had been expecting, but answers nonetheless.

_‘Come my Darling, Homeward bound!_ **_You_ ** _are the one you’ve been waiting for, all of your life!_ the voice of her mother had exalted as power had flowed around and through her. 

Had it truly been mother's spirit? Or had it been Ahtohallan itself, taking a memory from her to present itself?

She didn’t know.

But the _truth_ she had found was undeniable. That voice had called her to embrace the fact that **_she_ ** was the Fifth Spirit as her magic had resonated and all but overloaded … and at that moment of revelation, she had … changed.

More than simply the cosmetic reforming of her dress, the other spirits had somehow become _truly_ connected to her - and she to them in turn. Her power had grown beyond her understanding, leaving her enlightened of her true identity … yet still wildly ignorant of what it all _meant_.

More than just establishing a true connection with the other Spirits, she needed to understand what it _meant_ to be the Fifth Spirit, what it meant to be the one who maintained balance. And she thought that somehow, Ahtohallan _understood_ that uncertainty and confusion in her heart and had _invited_ -not called- her back here to learn.

“For I am found” she sang lightly with a soft smile as she reached the entrance into the vast caverns in the glacier, the dark tunnel lighting at her approach as she made her way down it, daylight somehow sleeping through the icy walls too in breathtaking refractions of rainbows. She followed the same path she had before, every step, twist and turn forever burned into her mind from that night. While before she had sprinted and slid and jumped and _raced_ through the vast caverns, desperate to find the source of her voice, this time she-

_‘Promise me that we do it_ together _, okay?’_

Elsa stopped so suddenly she would have surely slipped over if not for her natural affinity with ice, her smile vanishing behind a look of confusion as she heard Anna’s voice. Faintly, yet clearly. 

It was a discordant note in the harmony welcoming her back. And she remembered when her sister had said it, asking her to promise before they entered the mists that they would face what was inside together.

The promise she had made … and broken.

Shaking off the memory with a slight frown, she continued forward and through the tunnels, her hand lightly tracing and feeling the power flowing through this place and letting it wash away her disquiet. It _was_ much like her Ice Palace had been in some ways, but while that place was an extension of her power, this was something that both was and was not. Part of her _was_ here … but there was so much _more_ than too and the feeling was deeply seductive. Distracting too; before she knew it she had reached the great columns she had materialized to cross the chasm and with a wide smile she _leaped_ into the air once more-

_‘Please don’t shut me out again!’_

-and she very nearly missed her landing and fell down a _very_ long way as again, Anna’s voice seemed to come from ahead of her, landing awkwardly and freezing in place, shaken.

_‘Please don’t slam the door!’_

After a moment to collect herself and listen, without her sisters voice coming again, she waved her hand and her powers flowed out to tie the columns together and to both sides of the chasm; an elegant bridge much like the one she had spun out of air and joy on the North Mountain three years ago forming that she crossed calmly … _carefully_.

She did not find Anna waiting for her.

Unsurprising that; her sister was back in Arendelle. She had only _just_ sent her a letter via Gale this very day - and she touched the paper which was folded neatly inside a pocket close to her heart where she kept such things and finding a reassurance in the physical feel of it-

_‘We can head down this mountain together!’_

Again the voice came from just ahead as if she was here around the corner … and she now recalled _this_ conversation. It had been her sister begging her to trust her all those years ago at the ice palace. Trying to convince her to come back home … and she had pushed her away. 

_Some things never change_ Elsa thought with a slow exhale. _And some things stay the same._

On _that_ day, she had given into her fear no matter how much she claimed she was _free_. Right before in that fear she had lost control and she had-  
With a sharp breath she closed her eyes and pushed _that_ memory away - and in doing so realised, finally, the obvious. The memories were not coming from within.  
They were coming from without. From _Ahtohallan_.  
“Why?” she asked, in soft confusion, pressing a hand lightly to the icy walls, her voice echoing through the tunnels and chasms behind her. Why would it keep reminding her of all the times she had pushed her sister away?  
No answer came though - except for again that gentle urge, leading her onwards.

A little more carefully now, she did continue -without any further memories- and a short distance later she passed through the familiar triangular doorway. The columns she had raised from the ground still stood astride the path to it, glowing in their welcoming hues. And beyond the doorway in the middle of the chamber the symbol - _her_ symbol- sat the flawless floor pulsing with light as she approached it, flanked by the four symbols of the other spirits in a symmetrical harmony of design. Her worries, her confusion; all of it vanished as she stepped into the room and was almost overwhelmed by the power flowing through it - so much _more_ than the first time she had been here! If that was because she was now here in the full majesty of the Fifth Spirit, or, because Anna in destroying the dam had restored the balance?   
She didn’t know. She didn’t care.  
She skipped all the same to the light, feeling like a young child as her white dress and the four symbols of the other elements started to glow as she reached them and-  
A massive, multi-color column of magic exploded out up; hitting the roof just as it had last time, before washing down the great dome and bringing a wave of mist with it, Elsa intensely eager to see what Ahtohallan wanted to show her as its power spiraled and built-

The mist cleared seconds later, vanishing into nothing … and her eyes went wide in amazement as she found herself in Arendelle.

The massive fragmented dome projected the city, the mountains beyond and the sky above in a kaleidoscope of fractals that nonetheless felt intimately familiar to her. While directly around her, ice and snow _moved;_ a living diorama of her immediate surroundings that stunned her for how _amazing_ and _perfect_ the recreation was, feeling her power moving as part of it with such incredible control. Far greater than anything she had seen on her last visit here.  
She looked around in childlike wonder, trying to get her bearings. She … was in the town square ... and it had to be a recent memory as she recognized Oaken's little new trading stall that he had brought in only a few weeks ago off in the corner, murmurs of conversation all but inaudible from dozens of people made out of her gift -

Except for one voice who was quite clear.

“But _why_ did she have to leave da?” a girl asked, sounding genuinely upset and she spun around following the voice - and spotted little Hannah. One of the village children she had met quite a few times when Anna dragged her out into the city - she had been in the choir she had assembled to sing for Anna’s surprise birthday party all those years ago. Elsa had last seen her at the harvest festival, just before she had awoken the other spirits and Elsa smiled as she walked over slowly towards the girl and her family as her mother fussed with her dress. Remembering that as she had made toys of ice and snow for the children instead of an animal _she_ had asked for a _sextant!  
That _ had thrown her for a loop … but she had somehow managed to form one. The look of delight on her face as she had run off to her family screaming loudly and waving it, with such _joy...  
_ In fact, that whole afternoon with Anna and Kristoff and Olaf and Sven and the townspeople had been just about perfect.

“Honey, Queen Elsa has … she has a _new_ destiny that she has to follow” Hannah’s Father, -William she remembered- replied gently as he knelt down to look her in the eyes. “She’s the Fifth Spirit now - you saw her save Arendelle, remember?” and Hannah’s eyes flashed, even in her icy form. 

“That was _soooo_ awesome!” she agreed with a rapid nod and Elsa couldn’t help but giggle a little, holding a hand up to stifle it despite the fact that none of them could hear her, feeling her heart flutter a little at the praise. 

“Then you saw that she’s, well, _beyond_ us all now” he continued to his daughter. “I’m sure she’ll probably visit, sometimes, but we have to accept that this is the best for all of us. Elsa, from what I understand, isn’t even really human anymore - that’s her sister's job now! And I _know_ you love Queen Anna just as much-”  
“But she’s so busy now and we never see her anymore _and I still miss Elsa!_ Why’d she go? Weren't we good enough for her?” Hannah sniffled.  
The smile on her face slowly drained away to be replaced with confusion as Elsa stared, her gaze flicking back and forth between the upset Hannah and her parents before Hannah nodded sadly and stepped back to go over to the other children nearby.

_They thought she … that she wasn’t even_ human _anymore?!_

“If you ask me” Hannah’s mother -Anja she recalled- said in a low tone as she watched her daughter walk off with a critical eye, “there _has_ to be more to this we’re not being told. Those two girls were inseparable, always had each other's backs _no matter what._ But the Queen abandons her sister and Arendelle to go live off in the mountains, _again?_ Not even coming to her sister's coronation - or even saying goodbye?” she shook her head with a disapproving tutting as she frowned and started dusting lint from her husband's jacket. “Well, I suppose at least now we know where we all stand in the eyes of this ‘Fifth Spirit’.”

Elsa was fully aware as Queen that people would talk about her behind her back - had accepted it. Of course, for years her fear had been that, Anna’s optimism aside, her people would secretly fear or hate her while smiling to her face. The _monster_ who had frozen her Kingdom and killed her sister.  
It had taken some time for her to _truly_ , in her heart, understand that the people of Arendelle were an _amazing_ people. Forgiving and resilient in ways she had come to rely on almost as much as she relied on her sister. They had _forgiven_ her the events of her coronation almost as soon as they were over and had come to embrace her - _all_ of her. On her visits to the town and around Arendelle that Anna had constantly taken her on, she had found nothing but acceptance and even awe directed at her when she met people for the first time. Even thanks for the hard work she was doing for them!  
She was sure people still complained behind her back about her ... but she had finally become confident that they were simply the complaints _any_ monarch would have directed at them by virtue of being ‘in charge’ - not by virtue of being _her._ And even then, her advisors insisted she had very _few_ complaints. Her Kingdom was thriving - especially compared to the discontent her reports showed from Weselton and the Southern Isles - as she worked hard to open new trade links and modernise the country and _she_ was getting a great deal of the credit for that. The population was booming and the standard of living was growing with it. The words ‘Golden Age’ had even been thrown around a lot by both the people and by the nobility over the last year in fact - even if she privately thought people were overstating it.

And then … she’d run out on them without any explanation.

Her Father had always taught her that in the absence of facts, rumors would _always_ step in to fill the gaps … and she had left a rather huge gap. Showing up to save the city with a massive unleashing of her powers on the back of a horse made out of water … before vanishing and Anna returning home days later, alone?

Still. She could fix this - she _would_ fix it, the next time she was in Arendelle...

Her train of thought derailed though as the mist just as suddenly swirled back away from her again to show something new.  
Something far more familiar and infinitely more precious to her materialised and she felt her breath catch in her throat. 

Standing before her, was a Queen.

Wearing … ah; it _had_ to be her coronation dress. Similar but different to hers (but another good different!), Elsa was filled with a surge of emotion she wasn’t entirely ready for as she saw her baby sister preparing to step up to the throne, a crown on her head and looking every _inch_ a ruling Monarch. And a woman.

She was so _proud_ of her-

“... I don’t know if I can do this Elsa.”

\- and the tiny, forlorn tone of Anna’s voice stabbed her right in the heart. 

A tiny gasp escaped from her mouth and she stepped forward in shock. Based on the room that had formed around them, Anna must have been having her coronation portrait painted given the snow formed easel, drop sheets and painting and supplies scattered around … but that wasn’t what Anna was looking at now.  
It was _her_ coronation picture, showing on the wall in one of the fractals that she was talking too.   
She _hated_ that picture - even if she had put on her best fake smile and showered the egomaniac painter with praise until he had finished. She had been painted so … stiff. So formal. _Trying_ to look regal rather than just be herself. After the Great Thaw she had had it banished from the entrance hall to this room where she wouldn’t see it and cringe every time she walked in and out of the Castle, no matter how many people insisted she looked like a true Queen in it.

But Anna was staring at it with a look on her face that made her take a step towards her … before stopping herself a step later in frustration.

_This had already happened_ she reminded herself. _This wasn’t really Anna..._

“Anna, you _can_ ” Elsa muttered, her hands helplessly dropping to her sides as Anna -unknowingly- turned away from her and paced slowly, Elsa following and _willing_ her thoughts through to her baby sister - even as she felt that Anna talking to pictures on the wall again could only be a bad sign. “You’re so much _stronger_ -”

“ _-weaker_ than you” Anna spoke at the same time and Elsa’s eyes bulged, her thoughts screeching to a sudden stop with the abruptness of a trolley cart's brakes being thrown, her own strides stopping with equal abruptness.

Weak? _Anna? Her sister Anna? THAT Anna?!_ Absurd!

“You were the _perfect_ Queen” Anna sniffed as she stared at her picture, looking so _lost_ and unsure about herself that Elsa _again_ took a half step forward to touch her before, again, remembering herself and squeezing her fists in frustration as she stepped back. “I don’t know if I ever _told_ you that enough sis. How much _everyone_ looked up to you? You worked so _hard_ and were just so naturally _good_ at being Queen! But me?”  
Anna scoffed.  
“Well, _I_ can barely remember which meeting I’m even in! The klutz as always huh?!” she said in an ugly, _sickening_ tone directed at herself that made Elsa bite her lip, painfully and squeeze her hands tightly again, her nails digging into her palm this time. “What the agenda is, what the paperwork even means, where I have to be next ... and watched by every counselor, every duke and advisor. Measuring me, as I fumble from meeting to meeting, against _you_ . But hey, who can blame them? _I_ don’t, not when I’m just the second rate backup spare compared to the Fifth Spirit who saved the entire country with but a wave of her hand...”

“You are _not a ‘backup!”_ Elsa protested, feeling -irrationally- almost _furious_ suddenly at Anna putting herself down like this. 

Anna copying _her_ was the absolute worst thing she could do or that Elsa would _want_ her to do! The _last_ thing in the world Arendelle _needed!_   
Paperwork?   
Council meetings?   
Dealing with the various nobles of Arendelle that lived across their country in towns and villages far from Arendelle port itself? 

_That was_ **_nothing!_ **

The true test of a ruler was in _leadership_ . It was about holding to do what was _right,_ not simply what was easy or convenient and setting that example for the nation. To hold the love _of_ their people and _for_ their people in their heart and _do it all for them...  
  
That _ was where her sister was a blazing sun to her tiny candle in the night. Beloved by and in love with her country. _Always_ determined to do the right thing, no matter how dangerous or impossible. Far more than Anna may have even realized, her sister had been responsible for nudging her onto the right course during her reign and giving her the courage to see it through when her own courage faltered...  
Had her sister forgotten everything she had done during _her_ coronation?   
Had she already forgotten the way her people, anytime she was out on the town, would _swarm_ to her like sunflowers turning to the sun as it blazed across their sky?   
Had she already forgotten what she had accomplished in the Enchanted Forest? Of how when _she_ had fallen to her hubris here in Ahtohallan, her sister alone had been the one to stand up and prove-

“I mean, what exactly have I been _doing_ the last three years to earn their trust or prove I could do the job?” Anna continued, suddenly sounding ... tired. Seeming to slump, as if the hateful energy -all energy- had fled her all at once as she rubbed her eyes then reached up to pull off the crown and not quite casually toss it onto the sideboard.   
In all honesty, Elsa found this … lethargic Anna even _more_ frightening than the self-loathing one. 

Anna had never, not once, _ever,_ run out of energy or passion for their people. Seeing it now...

“ _You_ were working for all of us, in your office. Day in, day out. Doing the hard, important things while I’ve just been skipping around Arendelle doing, well, let's be honest ... nothing! It's no _wonder_ those nobles look at me as I stumble my way through the meetings and frantically flip through pages and _wonder what the hell I’m doing in that chair_ ...because it's what I keep thinking when I realize everyone is waiting for the Queen to speak - and I realize suddenly that that's _me!_ The biggest imposter of all time!”

_Oh Spirits._ Anna was clearly on the verge of _crying_ and the first around Elsa’s heart clenched at the warble in her voice, disbelief raging that this was actually happening … or had _happened.  
_ The disbelief was edged with rage though, her fists turning white in frustration as her nails dug deeper, Elsa embracing the pain as bringing a clarity and desire to go back to Arendelle and have _’words’_ with the nobles - and she had _strong_ suspicions which ones they would be - who were clearly looking down upon the woman who would be the single greatest ruler Arendelle would _ever_ have and trying to take advantage. Instead of supporting her as their oaths demanded!

“I could have - should have - been working _with_ you. Taking some of your workload off your hands, learning how to actually help you” Anna muttered, shaking her head slowly, as if denying Elsa’s distant feelings. “And if I had? Maybe … _maybe_ you wouldn’t have left me here alone. If I hadn’t been so _selfish_ …and maybe even if you had, I’d have a clue how to be even a _fraction_ as good a Queen as you were.”

“Oh _Anna..._ ” Elsa whispered, her head spinning as she watched the single most selfless and caring person on this _planet_ call herself _selfish._

But then her breath froze in her lungs as Anna- suddenly spun around _to stare directly at her_ and a wild hope that, _somehow,_ she could hear her as her arms entirely on instinct came up to grab her, _hold_ her-

_“It’s okay”_ a new voice called out and Kristoff materialized out of the mist walking over to his fiance, his arms open and holding out _his_ arms. Anna all but _leaped_ at him as Elsa hastily backed out of the way, her sister's form of ice and snow blurring through where she had been standing to crash into Kristoffs as her arms dropped, watching as he wrapped _his_ huge arms around her, holding her tightly and gently stroking her.  
While part of her was almost jealous that Kristoff was the one to comfort her sister… a far larger part was just filled with relief that he had been there for her when _she_ wasn’t.

And with Anna just silently crying into him as he held her, Elsa had a moment to think. The logical ‘Queen’ part of her mind starting to come forward. With questions. 

Starting with; _why had Ahtohallan shown this to her?_

There was some kind of intelligence behind this place of power and memory … but what was its interest? Its desire? Its purpose? It’s intention?  
Was this what it had called her here today to see? Was it just trying to torture her with knowledge of her failures? 

Or was it _her_ mind doing this? 

She still knew so frustratingly little about how _she_ had changed since the first time she had visited...

Finding no useful answers there, she moved on, her gaze -reluctantly- falling back to the tiny form of Anna wrapped up in Kristoff as he carefully brought them across to sit onto a large lounge, Anna clinging to him the whole way, just … holding him, looking so terribly _small._

And that was wrong. _So very wrong..._

Her mind flashed back then over the three letters she had received from Anna thus far since they had parted ways at the border between Arendelle and the Enchanted Forest, her near perfect memory re-reading them over and over in her mind. Looking for a clue, a hint, _anything…_

There was nothing.

_Suspiciously_ nothing come to think of it. Anna _had_ spoken of how busy she was and the work she was doing … but she had only done so briefly. Her words were full of optimism that she was fine and Arendelle was equally fine. Like she didn’t want to worry her.  
In fact, Anna had spent very little time talking about herself but had focused entirely on _her._ Pages of asking how _she_ was settling in. About the _Northuldran’s_ and their mothers people. About _her_ new life as the Fifth Spirit. Asking if there was anything _she_ needed to be sent to her? Anything she could do for her? Anything _she_ wanted, no matter what-

“Hey” Kristoff’s voice finally said as Anna's crying seemed to subside and she dragged her eyes back to the scene in front of her as he stroked her sister's hair ever so gently. “It’s okay Anna, you’ll be okay. _You're_ okay…”

_“Am I?_ ” her sister sniffed in a muffled tone, her face still pressed against his chest. “I’m not _ready_ for this Kristoff. I didn’t ask for this. Elsa had three years to prepare after mother and father died and I ...” Anna stopped to take a slow, deep shuddering breath and slowly untangled herself, Kristoff silently reaching up to wipe away the tears that had stained her face.   
“But Elsa _needs_ me to do this. Arendelle _needs_ me to do this … because there isn’t anyone else” she said, taking a second deep breath, her voice steadying a little more … yet her face was still set with such a melancholy that Elsa felt her hairs stand up on her skin, for how _alien_ she looked … as she stared into the face of her future husband.  
“Elsa never had a choice Kristoff, she never _once_ in her life was she given a choice about her future! But I _can_ give her that. Give her the choice. The choice to, heh, _be_ a free spirit?” She sniffed once, then started to talk faster, her voice getting jerky as she increasingly had to work to suppress the sobs trying to break though.   
“I love her so much Kristoff … so if this is what she wants, I’ll do _whatever_ it takes to keep her happy … but oh Gods Kristoff. I hate myself for even thinking about it, but I just … I just … if she _hadn’t_ come back to me? If she and Olaf were lost and I just had to _accept_ it and move on? If I had never had to know that she’d choose the Forest over Arendelle … and … and her magic over...” and at that Anna finally broke down completely and burst out crying, burying her face into her fiance as she sobbed, unable to finish the sentence. 

She didn’t need to. The word rang in Elsa’s soul like a great enormous bell of the damned pronouncing her doom.

**Me.** _She was going to say …me._

Despite knowing it was but a memory, despite knowing it wasn’t _really_ her sister, something inside Elsa _snapped_ at that and she rushed forward wildly; desperate to reach even this similitude of her sister … but fast as a snake, the mist swirled back in and snatched it out from her arms, leaving her alone grasping nothing but mist and feeling-

Cold. She felt _cold_ … cold ...

The feeling - _that_ feeling - cut through everything and snapped her attention back. She gasped and jerked her gaze to her arms and hands in no small amount of fear for a moment before spinning around as she wildly looked at the rest of her body…  
Then she forced herself to try and take deep breaths, to control the trembling of her body in the aftermath… _in. Out. In. Out. In. Out..._

No. No, she had _not_ gone too deep into Ahtohallan, there wasn’t any cold hitting her _magically.  
_ This? This was a _different_ kind of cold.   
A cold she had felt three times before.

She had felt it the first time as a child shaking her baby sister in a panic on the floor of the Throne Room, begging her to wake up from where she had fallen with the most horrifying _thud_ that had echoed through her nightmares for the rest of her life to this day.  
The second time she had been sitting against her door, clutching her knees to her chest, shivering and crying as the air stilled utterly in her room, Anna on the other side of her door, her voice clearly breaking as she begged her to come out and be with her after she had forced her sister to ‘bury’ their parents, such as it was, alone.  
The most recent time being when she had looked up as a young woman, wondering when the sword (that she _wanted_ to strike and just end this nightmare) was going to fall … and had only seen the frozen statue of her sister standing over her, having _just_ shielded her from what should have been the killing blow.   
Freezing to the touch.   
Frozen and so very _still_ in a grotesque parody of the sheer _life_ that had been her sister. The consequences to _Anna_ of _her_ magic and _her_ failure on display for all the world to see.

**_Always_ ** **,** the consequences to Anna.

In everything she did … _Anna_ suffered from _her_ actions.  
 _Every. Single. Time.  
_ And then Anna would, inevitably, _forgive_ her.   
Every. Single. Time!   
No matter how far she pushed her, how much she _deserved_ her sisters anger or scorn or sorrow or disappointment … she forgave her.

She half laughed, half sobbed as she slowly fell to her knees on the hard floor of flawless ice, tears flowing gently as she remembered when her sister's _true_ memories had returned. For as the streak of white in her hair had vanished with her revival, so too had whatever magic the Trolls had put into place to manipulate her memories ... and over the next few weeks, those _true_ memories had slowly filtered back to her.  
Elsa had feared this day, _fretted_ about it since the Great Thaw. Feared that Anna would (rightly and correctly) be furious at her once she knew the truth. Everything they had rebuilt in those precious weeks; the open gates and having Anna back in her life and her powers under control … despite _all_ of it and Anna proving with victory over death itself how deep her love was, Elsa had almost pessimistically been sure that this was going to break everything. Deep in her heart, _knowing_ she deserved everything her sister would throw at her when she remembered the truth.

Indeed, Anna _had_ been furious … at the fact that Elsa had been _blaming herself_ all these years for an _accident_.

The lecture-come-rant that followed the next evening when Anna had put it all together had made it _very_ well known what Anna thought about her ‘North Mountain Sized idiotic guilt complex!’ (as she had put it to both her and probably anyone in the Castle; Elsa in some awe at how fast, loud and _long_ Anna could speak for while pacing and wildly gesturing, seemingly without needing to take a breath).   
Her tone hadn’t been subtle, but her sister had left her no place to hide. Calming a little after her initial outbursts had backed Elsa into a corner like a scared kitten, she had all but dragged her to sit down and then with ruthlessness rarely seen, burrowed through her defenses and torn through the strangely comforting weight of guilt and self-loathing she had carried all her life, leaving her feeling entirely naked under those blazing eyes. The eyes that seemed to go from an empathic deep blue to a hard piercing green in a split second, slicing through _every_ attempt she made to try and blame herself for that night - or all the nights that followed. Forcing her to confront _everything_ she had tried to hide away from … even her assumptions.

No, Anna had simply held her as Elsa owned up to everything year after year, words spilling out faster and faster as she, in some bizarre way, wondered if she almost _wanted_ her sister to hate her. Pointing out that it hadn’t been their parents who had kept them apart, not truely. They had tried to get her to come out of her room and spend time with her -just without using her magic- for years, but _she_ had pushed them and everyone else away in terror rather than having the courage to face her fears. Not even daring to talk back through the closed door lest she somehow lose control.  
Almost desperately, Elsa had tried and tried to get Anna angry as she vented everything. To righteously show her fury, _entirely_ deserved, for the decade of pain and loneliness she had inflicted upon Anna time after time … to have Anna _punish_ her as she oh so deserved to be...

But Anna just kept repeating herself over and over again.

_“Elsa, it_ wasn’t _your fault. It was just an accident. And I_ love _you...”_

Sometimes said gently. Sometimes said sharply. Sometimes said with a kind of wry exasperation … but _coming from a heart that had defied death itself with its power,_ it had smashed into her with the force of an almighty battering ram every time she tried to hold onto the guilt as she had stayed with her. It had been so very painful, like ripping off old bandages … but necessary like … well … ripping off old bandages. Finally letting wounds Elsa had been hiding all her life start to heal as, inevitably, the sun had risen in the morning on a brand new day as the night had ended with Anna holding her in her arms.

_“Elsa, you were only trying to_ protect _me, I_ understand _that now and I_ love you so much _for keeping me safe the only way you thought you could...no matter what it cost_ you. _”_

By the end of it all, she had been reduced to a silent, sobbing ruin, no longer the powerful Snow Queen of Arendelle but a child clutching her sister and crying as she was, almost against her will, _forgiven._ Simply smothered with Anna's love as she simply forgave her everything freely and happily for now she had her sister back. They had fallen asleep together at dawn. Elsa felt _exhausted_ … yet at the same time, so much _lighter_ than she had felt for most of her life.

_“Forget yesterday, think about what we’re finally going to be able to do tomorrow._ Together _”_

Love, again, had conquered fear. And that’s what Anna _was._ Love. Pure love. Patient love. Kind love that had dragged her out of her self pity and self hatred into a new day.

But above all, Anna was _selfless._

Oh _spirits_ she was selfless! In too many ways and too many times, Elsa had hurt her sister by pushing her away through their childhood and youth without Anna having any understanding _why_ … yet Anna had _never given up_ on her. _Anna_ _had sacrificed her life for her without hesitation after all those years!_ An act of such true selfless love that it had overpowered even _her_ magic and restored her life in defiance of death, something even ancient primordial magical forces had only done incredibly rarely in the legends.  
Everything up to the Great Thaw could _perhaps_ be excused in some tiny way as the fears of a child or the flawed decisions of a young woman trying to protect her sister … but from that day, with everything in the open; Elsa had sworn she would try to be worthy of her sister’s love and sacrifice.

_And behold how_ well _you’ve done that Elsa!_ Her mind scathingly charged her in silent accusation … and the harsh truth was too much.

Elsa dropped her face into her hands and collapsed fully to sit on the floor, unmoving, ignoring the spike of pain as she all but fell onto the hard ice. Silently letting the tears flow. Her powers swirling around her (thankfully harmlessly absorbed into Ahtohallan itself rather than starting a winter storm) wildly as she wondered how everything had gone so _wrong_ , so _fast_ over and over.  
Perhaps a minute passed. Perhaps an hour. Perhaps a lifetime. But eventually, slowly, bit by bit, Elsa found the willpower inside herself to start to pull herself back together. The part of her that had been a Queen _refusing_ to simply let her sit here and cry all day and feel more sorry for _herself_ than for her _sister_ . And as she dried her eyes off, starting to get her poise back, her blurry gaze happened to focus in on the great pulsing snowflake symbol on the floor she was sitting on, flanked by the symbols of the other four elements … and a truth leapt into her mind in a sudden anger that _burned_ and sharply refocused her thoughts.

_The voice!_

Yes, _that damn voice_ that had started singing three weeks ago! **_That_ **was what had disrupted her ideal life and brought Anna to such … misery…

_No … no._

_That was unfair - and_ wrong, she thought with a slow sigh as she redirected her gaze slowly around the incredible cavern, even now unable to do anything but marvel at its stunning beauty she both saw with her eyes and felt with her powers. Her anger vanished like a well oiled chain slipping through her fingers. Because no matter how greedily and desperately she wanted to hang onto the idea that _it_ was the root of all her problems, she couldn’t … because there was nothing there.  
It wasn’t the siren call of Ahtohallan that was the problem.   
Ahtohallan simply … _was_.   
_Her_ power was here as much as it was inside her. It had simply called to her; like to like - it had _not_ dictated the way she had reacted. 

That … had been all her. The all too _human_ part of her.

First, she had dismissed it as but a whisper on the wind until it had grown too powerful for her to simply pretend she could ignore it. And on that day it _had_ become so seductive, as she stood on the balcony of her castle looking up-Fjord, finally convinced it was _real_ and being startled by Kai coming up behind her … what had she done?

The same thing she _always_ did. And that was her first error in all this.

How many times had promised her sister that the ‘gates’ would always be open? That she would never shut her out again? That they would face any problems _together?_ She honestly couldn’t have guessed because she had said it so many times. Yet when push came to shove, at the first _real_ test … she had fallen _right_ back into her old habits. _  
_ She had given into her fear and closed her sister out, afraid that she would hurt her or drive her away, even as her powers had raged and pushed at her as the voice grew in strength, resonating with her magic in a way she just didn’t understand yet…trying to keep everything hidden…

Because secretly, she had wondered.

A greedy hope deep in her heart that perhaps, just perhaps, there was _someone_ else out there with magic. Someone just like her! For as much as she loved her sister and her family, a part of her had always felt so terribly _alone_...   
No other living person had been found, by herself or her parents anywhere in or around Arendelle with magical powers - outside of the Trolls of course - in living memory. All her life she had _dreamed_ that somewhere out there was someone who shared her reality. Her world. Someone who would come and help her, teach her … save her.  
She had gained control over her powers in the aftermath of the Great Thaw with her sister's revelation that love would _always_ thaw and was far more powerful than fear, yet that secret dream of ‘someone else’ like her, remained.

It was so selfish of her. Her sister shared _everything_ with her, with no boundaries or walls between them … and she, at the first real test, had hidden the truth away. Evaded her sister's concerned gaze and smiled, saying nothing was wrong. She had jealously guarded that voice. Listening in fascination as it grew stronger, _feeling its lure_ almost like a physical thing trying to pull her towards it as its siren call became a _demand_ that throbbed against her magic until...  
...until she had been caught red handed in her night clothes on a cliff face sheepishly admitting to her sister and people, kicked out of their own Kingdom, that she _might_ have awoken the spirits of the Enchanted Forest after hearing a voice calling to her for _weeks_ by calling back with her magic and getting a quite … loud … response. That had put them all in incredible danger.

Anna had called her on her betrayal (even if Anna would never call it that, that _is_ what it was) before - of course - forgiving her. But her sister had extracted a promise. Forcing her to look into her eyes as she clutched their hands together on the edge of the enchanted forest, making her _promise_ that they would do this _together._

And she had so promised. Of her own free will.

Yet _again_ at the test, when push came to shove … she had betrayed that promise as readily as all the other times she had made it.

Ignoring her sisters warnings, attempting to walk away without her time and time again, charging into fire without any care for the risk - then being mad when Anna _dared_ followed her! Blaming herself for their parents death, of robbing Anna of their mother and father, no matter how forcefully Anna had pointed out to her (A QUEEN who should know better!) that their parents were adults capable of making their own decisions and that it was _not_ her fault. That all people had to have the right to make their own decisions and stand by their own choices…

She had failed to understand that or hear the warning in her sister's voice, selfishly blaming herself before _compounding_ her error!

No matter that Anna had made the -prophetic!- point that Elsa _needed her_ to stop her from going too far in this desperate, irrational desire to find this voice calling for her, she had broken her promise to do all of this together _._ She had treated Anna like a child - like Anna was still five years old. A child incapable of making her own decisions and judging her own risks … and she shoved her and Olaf away - by tricking them to come close and hug her, telling herself that it was for her sister's own good like she was a child to be locked outside her door once again. 

And if not for her sisters incredible, _genuinely_ heroic acts at the dam? 

That would have been Anna’s last memory of her.

_I suppose_ she thought in mental exhaustion, _it would have been an entirely_ fitting _final memory. One last time I pushed Anna away and betrayed her trust..._

_“I just don’t know how to_ help _her’_ Kristoff's voice suddenly broke into her thoughts and she blinked, wiping away the tears as she raised her head to find that Ahtohallan had, _again_ , brought up a memory to torment her.  
It _was_ Kristoff again but this time he was being presented as sitting on the ground near her … and he wasn’t talking to her sister.

_“We all want to help the ones we love my boy”_ Grand Pabbie calmly replied, the similitude of the Troll in turn sitting casually on top of a rock, his face wise and his eyes kind, even in the icy form he was being presented in. _“But sometimes all we can do is be there to support them as best we can as they walk their own path.”_

_“It’s not enough Pabbie” Kristoff shook his head, frustration written on his face. “Anna needs_ more _but I can’t_ help _her! I’m_ useless _to her! Every day, I can_ feel _her pushing herself that much closer to her limits, finding a way to stretch herself just a little bit more. She puts on a bright smile every morning but it's getting thinner and thinner - and at night when she’s sleeping…the nightmares...”_

Elsa flinched _._

_“Nightmares are the fears of the heart at their most pure - and all the more dangerous for that”_ Pabbie said slowly, his expression turning serious. _“I … take it they have been ongoing since she returned_ without _her sister?”  
_ At his nod, Elsa closed her eyes and her head slumped completely into her hand, hints of despair poking at the back of her eyes. The joy she had felt only this morning as she had approached Ahtohallan so distant it felt like it had belonged to a different Elsa entirely.

_She_ had suffered nightmares after the ‘Great Thaw’. For months. A secret kept close to only the very inner circles of the Royal family as she woke in the middle of the night gasping and wildly looking around. Several times in that first week she had snuck out of her room, her powers pulsing dangerously as she walked to Anna’s, if just to see her and _look at her_ in her bed, snoring her adorable, drooling, bed-head face off. Alive, warm and well. Letting the love well up and banish that fear once again.  
Anna had, of course (somehow) found out about this.. And then one night as she had gasped and woken shuddering and almost crying, Anna had suddenly materialized into the moonlight like an angel in the night; holding her shaking cold hands and firmly but gently telling her that she was right here. She was alive and everything was fine.   
And without a word, had gently but firmly put her back to bed, lying next to her and holding her until she had fallen back to sleep … and she slept the rest of the night in a more peaceful sleep then she had known in … far too long.

It hadn’t taken long then for the nightmares to start to recede and for her to sleep all the way through the night. And then Anna had retreated - yet several times she had woken up with mother’s scarf draped over her. A silent message from her sister that she was _still_ watching out for her - and always would, until the nightmares had finally been replaced by far happier dreams of their future lives laid out before them rather than the past behind them. She had clearly suspected _something_ was going on when the voice was calling her in the way she had suddenly decided to ‘have a sleepover’ with her after such a long time.

But Anna hadn’t said anything about nightmares in her letter and Elsa hadn't even considered the possibility … 

Another error.

Anna had clung almost _painfully_ to her upon their reunion as she cried out that she had thought she had lost her … but had seemed to get back to her normal self quickly after they had brought Olaf back. And so Elsa had not hesitated in … telling her that she was leaving her and Arednelle forever, but would visit _and_ was putting her in charge of the entire country.

And Anna had, _because she was Anna_ , smiled and nodded and clearly suppressed her true feelings because it would make _her_ happy. _  
__And_ you _took full advantage of that! Deep down, you_ **knew** _she would never deny you this -or anything- and so you pushed it at her, didn’t you!?_ A voice deep inside her soul quietly damned her.   
She wanted to silence the voice mocking her choices by protesting that she had pushed Anna as the new Queen because Anna would become a _greater_ Queen for Arendelle than she ever could be … but she couldn’t.

In all honesty, she just … _couldn’t._

She hadn’t asked - she had just _told_ her sister that she _had_ to leave and that Arendelle would now be _her_ realm to lead. Oh, she had thought - and _still_ thought - that Anna could and would do a better job than she ever could as Queen. Be the greatest Queen in the history of the nation! _But,_ the hard truth was, in this place where she could _not_ lie even to herself ... she _had_ offloaded her sacred responsibilities as if they were _meaningless_. That her revelation as the Fifth Spirit had ended the ‘old’ Elsa and that everything she had sworn or promised was thus null and void. 

That her duties were burdens to be disposed of.

Responsibilities to be abrogated on a technicality.

Oaths that she owed to no-one, least of all herself. 

As if ‘Queen Elsa’ and ‘Fifth Spirit’ Elsa were different people.

_Deciding for_ Anna yet again, without any concern for her feelings, dreams, wishes or desires...because in her heart, she _knew_ Anna would accept them without complaint or protest. Not because she was the best person for the job, but because it was an oh so elegant way to abandon every responsibility she had so she could run off and simply have fun! Like a child!

In that moment, she had acted more selfishly then she had in her entire life, _taking advantage of her little sister's unconditional love_ to shed her responsibilities and duties behind sickeningly constructed justifications. 

Her _third_ error.   
The most grievous error of all.

She had taken love for granted _._

_“Deep down, more than anything else, Anna is terrified of people_ leaving _her”_ Kristoff was saying and Elsa’s sapphire eyes were dragged, almost unwillingly back to him as she feared what he might say next. _“I mean, one morning Anna woke up to find her sister had moved out of her bedroom and she wouldn’t see her again for most of a decade, spending it more or less alone._ Then _she lost her parents, leaving her even_ more _isolated. But in the end she got Elsa back again. All it took was chasing her up and down a mountain, almost getting eaten by wolves, thrown off a cliff by a snow monster, betrayed by the man she thought loved her and sacrificing her life for her sister … do you know what she calls that day Pabbie?”_

The Troll titled his head slightly 

_“The best day of her life?”_ he suggested with a twinkle in his eye.

_“No, the best day of …”_ Kristoff shook his head, then paused and stared at the troll for a moment, his mouth comically hanging open in a way that actually brought a faint twitch of a smile momentarily to Elsa’s face before he shook his head. _“I mean … yeah, that''_ he said, awkwardly scratching his loose hair. “ _Because despite everything, Anna told me she’d freeze a_ thousand _times in a row if it meant she got to ‘wake up’ to Elsa grabbing onto her and hugging her that tight at the end of it.’_

Elsa could only close her eyes and let the fresh tears flow down her face at _that_ revelation. Guilt, deeper than the well of Ahtohallan itself, started to thrash like the dark sea in a rage around her as Kristoff continued, unknowing how he was driving the guilt deeper into her soul.

_“But now Elsa is_ gone. And _I don’t think Elsa has a damn clue, really, just what Anna went through in that cave - Anna closes_ right up on me _whenever I even_ approach _the subject. If not for Olaf blabbing … but even that's only part of it. Trying to get over what happened in the cave would be hard enough for_ anyone _. Trying to do it_ without _Elsa around anymore - even though she knows she is out there- is making Anna miserable. And that workload Elsa dumped on top of her without any chance to try and prepare? All by herself? It's burden on top of burden Pabby…”_

_“Kristoff, she still has_ you. _And she clearly loves you-”_

_“My love just isn’t_ enough! _”_ he said and the sheer _helplessness_ and _anguish_ in his tone at that statement stabbed into her - even through her numbness. This man - this _good man_ who had proven to her over the years that he adored her sister, was living his own nightmare - thanks to her. And she knew something about watching someone else suffering and not being able to do anything about it…and to think she had inflicted it on such a man.

She had the feeling somehow that Grand Pabbie had quite deliberately poked this to get exactly this reaction as Kristoff shot to his feet with wild energy, pacing and seething with motion as he gave gesture to his frantic helplessness and vented it out.

_“I can_ hold _her, I can_ hug _her, I can try to tell her it's going to be okay, try to joke and make her smile … but I can’t really do anything useful! Sometimes it’s like she’s not even there even when I’m holding her!”_ he didn’t quite shout and Elsa didn’t miss the hitch in his voice as she saw that with incredible detail, Kristoff, the utterly implacable mountain man who defined self reliance and control … was _crying.  
At least I could claim ignorance of the consequences of my selfishness and stupidity _ she thought numbly. He’s _the one standing by Anna, forced to watch as she’s ground down day by day...  
“I’m not a noble. I can’t help her with her papers, I can’t help her with all the decisions and political issues I don't understand. She has Kai and Greda and they’re doing _ everything _they can to help her and giving me a crash course in being a Queen's Consort at the same time … but it’s just nowhere near enough. I’m watching the woman I love day by day as her shoulders slump just a little lower. No matter how wide she tries to smile in the mirror, no matter how much Olaf tries to cheer her up! She has nightmares at night, deals with a nightmare of a life during the day and there is no letup, no rest - it_ never ends! _She is doing it_ alone Pabbie. _And I think the_ only _thing that keeps her going is thinking that it's all worth it if it makes Elsa happy”._

Point in fact; Elsa, in fact, did _not_ feel happy, **_at all_** _,_ about that revelation.

_“Do you think she is_ incapable _of being Queen_?” Pabbie asked, his tone serious and Kristoff turned back sharply, shaking his head firmly as he rubbed his eyes harshly before taking a deep breath and calming down a little.

_“No, not for a second. Elsa was right when she said that Anna_ could _be an ever greater Queen then her - well,_ as _great as her”_ he corrected himself as he moved to sit back down again, a deep frown of frustration shifting onto his face. “ _Elsa was an_ incredible _Queen - everyone I spoke to in and around Arendelle agreed. I’m not sure Elsa ever really understood just how much she was loved - the awe and respect she had_ earned _for herself over the last few years and how proud everyone was we had a unique and special person leading us. And how many people now think that somehow,_ we _failed_ her? _That she never really considered Arendelle her home? Everyone on the street_ loves _Anna, but everyone wants to ask me what the hell happened with Elsa? But then,_ I _don’t understand what the heck happened with Elsa either Grandpabbie...”_

“That I think makes two of us” she muttered in a low voice - yet she couldn’t help but be struck in the heart about what Kristoff had said. He had always been - naturally- closer to the ‘ordinary’ people of Arendelle and what he was saying about how she had been perceived...

Kristoff, his venting seemingly done, seemed to collapse inwards a bit and slumped back to the ground in front of Pabbie, holding his head in his hands and letting her finally see just how _tired_ he looked - truly.

There was silence for a time, then Kristoff seemed to take a few deep breaths and he looked up at Pabbie, who had simply waited patiently while he pulled himself back together, clearly having needed to get all that off his chest. And Elsa waited with them invisibly.

_“Do you know what Olaf says love is?”_ Kristoff asked finally. “ _He says that love is putting someone else's needs ahead of your own.”_

_“He is a very wise snowman”_ Pabbie chuckled.

“Yes, he is” Elsa agreed as _that_ statement, unknown to Kristoff, became perhaps the most damning indictment of her actions yet. Because by that standard...oh Spirits, what had she done?

_“Anna Loves Elsa so much Pabbie. She’ll do whatever she can, stretch herself to_ breaking point _and beyond if necessary, before she will ever,_ ever _do something she thinks will let Elsa down. But she’s not immortal or infinite. She’ll throw herself at the problems, determined that either they give way or she will … and I’m terrified she’s going to finally throw herself at one too many problems and …”  
_ He didn’t say exactly what he thought would happen, but Elsa none the less understood exactly what he meant. Anna … would break.   
Shatter.   
The unstoppable force they all knew would be dried up into a husk, a bright candle burned down to nothing far before her time. 

And that thought _terrified_ her.

She knew more than any other person in Arendelle the gravity and weight of the crown … and she had **_failed_ ** it.

She had sworn an oath. A sacred, binding, oath. Of her own free will. To protect and serve Arendelle and its people - _including_ her sister. And she had oh-so-elegantly _sidestepped_ out of it by dumping the crown onto her sisters head, justifying her casual abdication on the grounds that her kingdom would be better off under Anna. Ergo, she had fulfilled her oath on a technicality, so she could run off to Ahtohallan with a clear conscience.   
Except, she hadn’t.  
As Kristoff had pointed out, she had had three _years_ to prepare for her coronation and her parents had left contingency plans in place should they not return, with a regency council stepping in with little friction and helping her slowly prepare for that day. Training her as she focused everything she had on it so she wouldn’t have to think about Anna or their parents. Without even considering the fact that she had _always_ been trained to be the Queen. And while Anna had of course been given some training as ‘the spare’ while she was ‘the heir’, she was both older than her sister and had been the primary focus. She had been _far_ more ready than Anna, even if she had been younger than her and she had been eased into it gently.

_She_ had given Anna about three minutes of warning … then left her to it.

Even if Anna _would_ be a better Queen … it still did not excuse _her_ of her oaths. Of the responsibility that was _hers_ and _hers alone._ Abdication was the _gravest_ of choices, her parents had told her this over and over again as they had prepared her for her role. When Elsa had wondered why she shouldn’t just abdicate in Anna’s favor outright as a teenager, her Father had taken her to the throne room that evening. Just the two of them … and sat her on the throne.

_‘Few rulers can -or will- lower themselves to truly understand the plight of their people directly and that is almost inevitably their greatest failing Elsa’_ her Father had said to her that night - not long after the accident. ‘ _But there are even_ fewer _people who can_ raise _themselves up_ selflessly, _without ego, to effectively lead a nation. It is both the greatest honor and the greatest burden of our family to sit here, on this, for them -_ always for them. Never _for yourself. One day’ he said, stepping back a few steps to face her, sitting wide eyed on the Throne, clutching the armrests of the great wooden chair,_ ‘this _will be yours. And every time before you sit on it, when you wonder if you can … just tell yourself that you are doing it for all of them - even Anna - and you’ll never fail and you will find peace.’_

And she had done her best to be that Queen. She had worked so very _very_ hard to prepare for the role, redoubling her efforts after her parents had died and the crown had fallen onto her shoulders. No matter how terrified she was of her secret being discovered she had refused to dishonor her family, her parents years of training her or her people.   
And, after her secret had become public and said people had not simply accepted it but _celebrated_ it? Their home no longer _just_ a castle, but a _home_ flowing with her magic over and through it. Ice decorating and fusing into it as she took up the throne and accepted the title of the _Snow Queen_ of Arendelle. Showing everyone, not least of all herself, that she _could_ be who she was. _All_ of her.

And then she had run away from it all. _Again._

For all her smoldering anger at the nobles who were apparently looking down on her sisters attempts to take up the burden of ruling rather than lifting her up, if _she_ were to stand up and condemn them for it ... wouldn’t _they_ have every right (if not more) to condemn _her_ for doing much the same and running away from _her_ duties?

_“Anna loves Elsa Pabbie - more than anyone or anything”_ Kristoff brought her attention back to the present as he continued to speak. “ _And I know for a fact that not_ one _of the letters she has sent Elsa has said_ anything _about how hard she’s finding things. She would_ cut off her hand _before she let it write anything that might worry her sister or deny her the freedom Elsa has after dumping all her responsibilities onto_ her” and Elsa cringed at the accusation in the man's voice, knowing full well how correct he was. _“But I know Elsa - I_ know _that no matter whatever the heck happened in Ahtohallan, she loves her sister. I_ refuse _to believe otherwise and I know she’ll come if she understands how bad a time her sister is having … but I can’t reach out to her. I can hardly leave Anna to go for her sister - and if Anna felt that_ I _doubted her abilities? I just … I can’t think of that! But Pabbie, I know you_ have _to have a way of getting a message to her telling her how badly her sister_ needs _her big sister-”_

_“At which point Elsa would charge back on the Nokk with the speed of the wind spirit and the wrath of the fire and earth spirits in her heart?”_ Pabbie suggested with an arch look, his tone suddenly serious and not in any way jolly now, with the wisdom of ages running through it that made her shiver slightly. “ _She’d probably turn a half dozen nobles who had been undermining her sister into ice statues_ for a start _in her fury, as a warning to the rest, then get all Anna's paperwork done, sort everything out and otherwise completely undermine her sisters authority and make everyone think that she was little more than a regent for her?”_

The sheer bluntness -albeit without any real edge- shocked Elsa almost as much it seemed to shock Kristoff. 

But what was most horrifying was … that he _wasn’t_ wrong.

If she had received such a message -without these memories from Ahtohallan to put everything into careful context or Pabbies wise council about taking rash actions? Well, she had a _very_ good idea which ‘two of three’ nobles _would_ be the ones causing Anna trouble and once she confirmed it she would-  
Elsa gasped in shock. Having only a few weeks ago felt the pain, terror, helplessness and _fear_ of being slowly frozen into a solid ice statue prison from her feet up until darkness took her, the idea that she could so _readily,_ even _eagerly_ think of doing that to another person…

The power -her power- terrifying in how _great_ it was now- seethed under her fingertips and for the first time in forever she felt _fear._ Fear of her power. Of herself-

_No!_

She squeezed her eyes for a moment and pictured her sister's face, the silent look she knew very well telling her, making her _know_ that _she was better than this…_

And the power slowly faded - as did some of the angst flowing around her heart as she kept thinking of Anna - and Kristoff - and Hannah and her people … _and the complete_ _mess_ she had made of her sister and her Kingdom with her rash, impulsive actions. And that _this would not help them._

_“A beginning is a most delicate time - the beginning of a new reign of a King or Queen the most delicate of all”_ Pabbie continued as if he had been waiting for her to get herself under control when Elsa opened her eyes again, shaken and understanding the anger was truly at herself, not at anyone else. _“Today will be the greatest challenge yet for Anna with the formal start of her reign,_ you _need to get back home before she wakes up”_ Pabbie said and Elsa again felt her heart skip a beat as she realized Kristoff had snuck out at night to visit his family. To ensure he would be there for Anna when she woke up by giving up his own sleep. Probably exhausting himself in the process. And that this memory must have been from only this very morning.

If, _somewhere_ in her heart was any last sickening jealousy or envy of Kristoff the place in her sisters heart (that she had always been slightly possessive about) it quietly died unmourned as she realized just how much this man loved her sister. And how worthy he was of her.

_“I will ensure Elsa finds out what she needs to know, my boy”_ Pabbie assured Kristoff. _“But you need to go home to your soon to be Queen and soon to be Wife.”_

There was a pause and Elsa could see some of the tension leave the troubled man as he stood.

_“Thanks … thanks Pabbie. For everything”_ he said with sincerity as he turned and started to walk away. _“Hey, Sven? Come on, we’ve got to get home before Anna kicks my ass!”_ he said as he walked off into the mist, his voice fading into nothing.

“I think it's too late for me to avoid _that_ ” Elsa muttered lowly to herself as she closed her eyes and tried to find a centre in this utter disaster of a situation, feeling utterly lost- 

“Well _that_ sounds like a bit of an overreaction” Pabbie replied, mildly amused. “And as I understand, it's normally the privilege of the eldar human sibling to yell at the younger one?”

Elsa snorted at that.

“Clearly Pabbie, you have _not_ spent enough time around….” then her voice trailed off as she blinked, then slowly with wide eyes brought her gaze back to the icy Troll … who was looking _directly at her_ with a kindly, gentle smile. 

_What?!_

“But … you … how?” she found herself spluttering with a rare lack of words as she stared at the impossible icy figure that laughed gently at her then flung his arms wide.

“Maaaggiiiicccc” Pabbie said in such an exaggerated tone and waved his tiny arms in such an over the top exaggerated manner in response to such an obvious question that Elsa couldn’t help but hiss and then break into a snorting, snickering sort to laugh for a moment, reaching up to wipe her eyes and take a breath as the silliness cracked through her angst, just a little.

She’d needed that.

“Well now. Look at you! The Fifth Spirit of the Enchanted Forest!” Pabbie smiled in what seemed to be genuine pleasure, hopping lightly off the ‘rock’ he had been sitting on to walk over to her and to her amazement and awe with a wave of magic his icy form became … real?! 

She didn’t bother asking how; Ahtohallan clearly was playing by its own rules.

“You also look like a complete mess Elsa” he then added with a look that somehow mixed amusement and empathy in a dry way only the very wise could. “Some humans _can_ pull off crying, you just do _not_ have the complexion for it, my dear”

She managed another half laugh, half sob at that as she reached up and tried to dry off her face with her white sleeves, feeling her tears conveniently freeze and absorb into her dress.

“M’sorry” she got out, _hating_ the way she was sniffing. The way she felt like a little lost child, how _far_ she had fallen in such a short time!  
She forced herself to take two deep breaths to centre herself before continuing.   
“It’s … it’s just a lot to take in to realize how badly you failed someone when you were sure you had done the right thing.”

“ _That_ , I can well understand” the Troll agreed with her as he came to a halt and carefully sat down next to her, letting out a sigh. “It reminds me of my own greatest failure sixteen years ago. When a terrified child who had suffered an awful accident came seeking wisdom and reassurance with her parents. And I failed her, her parents and her sister. Utterly.”

Elsa was hardly blind to what he was talking about. But...

“Grand Pabbie” she said feeling slightly nonplussed, “you _tried_ your very best to warn me that fear would be my enemy. It is hardly your fault that either I or my parents failed to heed-”

“Elsa” he cut her off with a _look_ of such authority that she closed her mouth almost before she realized it at the sheer authority and wisdom he projected without thinking that silenced her so easily. Then, after a moment of studying her he sighed again and turned, waved his hands and … lights started to materialize and dance above him, some part of her being perceiving that, somehow, he was drawing the power of Ahtohallan somehow. Her mist coloured and swirled into patterns. Patterns that made her, against her will and all the power she now possessed, _flinch_ and feel like she was an eight year old child again. The blue silhouette clearly her, flanked by crowds of people with a snowflake above her … that went _red_ as did the people, suddenly turned upon her in fear and anger and _struck-_

The image vanished and she gasped, _fear_ spiking inside her-

“Yes. _That_ ” he said in a tone of ancient sorrow and regret, his gaze penetrating as she looked back down at him, his expression pained and genuinely ashamed as he looked away. “I hoped to show you that fear was something to be faced head on. To be _conquered_ ” he said, letting out a slow sigh. “Clearly I was _badly_ out of practice dealing with humans, for I did the worst _possible_ thing and _terrified_ a child, you, who needed only _love_ and her sister to face the world without fear _._ I set you and your parents on a course to fear _yourself_ instead of embracing yourself. Of fearing powers you had perfectly under control and rejoiced in. Robbed you of Annas love and Anna of yours, leaving scars on so very many people. I may even have indirectly cost your parents their lives Elsa as they, in desperation to find a way out of the quagmire I had made of your lives, sought out this place” he looked around, raising an arm to idly take in the great chamber around them. “And fell trying to reach it.”

Elsa swallowed, not knowing quite what to say to all of this as Pabbie for the first time seemed almost unable to meet her gaze, clearly bitter at his failings and what they had cost her and her family …   
And then, from somewhere, deep inside her soul, she almost seemed to hear her sister whisper to her. And an iron clad certainty and empathy struck her.

“Pabbie” she said softly as she marveled at the sudden strength she found from her sister's example in her heart as he looked up at her. “You’re not responsible for _my_ choices. Or my parents choices. Any of it. You _saved my sister's life_ that night after I came terrifyingly close to _killing_ her. Nothing else, _nothing_ else matters. And … I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.”

“You never had any need to thank me for that” he tried to wave her off but she shook her own head sharply.

“And _you_ never had any need to ask for my forgiveness - because there was nothing to forgive” she insisted taking a deep … and then, she just … let it go. Willing all the mixed emotions and memories of that night so long ago to simply … go. Leaving the past in the past in favor of moving forward and facing the monumental mess she had made of things in the _now_. “But now I have to try and figure out what I’m going to do … and I don’t even have a clue where to start” she admitted helplessly. “I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions. And if I choose being the fifth spirit over Anna I’m betraying her. Or if I choose the Enchanted Forest over Arendelle I’m betraying my oaths, myself and my family. But if I’m the Fifth Spirit I don’t see how I even have...”

Her increasingly emotional venting cut off as Pabbie … chuckled. Chuckled then actually laughed briefly, shaking his head with a smile and making her blink in confusion at him before he waved her unasked question away as he composed himself to regard her in some amusement.

“Oh my dear young Elsa. I believe that humans have a saying about ‘putting the cart before the reindeer?’” he asked and Elsa on instinct opened her mouth to correct him … then closed it and nodded deciding that the meaning was the same even if it was clear Kristoff had some … interesting takes on old colloquialisms, the side of her lip twitching and threatening to pull her into a smile.

“Yes. It means, more or less, to do things in the wrong order” she confirmed hesitantly.

“Just so” Pabbie nodded brisky, before to her surprise, reaching up to gently take her hands and hold them. It felt strangely comforting and she gripped his tiny little rough hands back, finding them surprisingly warm. “But why would you wish or be forced to choose between yourself and yourself?”

“I … what?” she frowned at him, utterly lost at that - and he in turn tilted his head at her.

“How could you ever be confused choosing between yourself and yourself?” he repeated, tugging her hands up and flipping them over. “Why would you ever need or _want_ to choose between your left hand and right hand?”

“Grand Pabbie, I don’t understand…” she said, feeling a little put out at the bizarre statement and earned a slightly ironic look in return from the Troll before he considered her … and then a sudden understanding appeared in his eyes.

“No. You don’t do you? This explains much” he squeezed her hands again, his expression earnest. “Elsa, what _is_ the role of the Fifth Spirit?”

“To bring balance to the spirits” she replied automatically. 

“And what does that _mean?”_ he pressed her … and she gave the only answer she could.

“I … don’t know ” she admitted, her head dropping down in shame. All this power and the majesty of this place and in the end, _she_ still didn’t know what she was _doing_ here. “I had hoped that Ahtohallan was calling me today to try and start teaching me what it meant, but I’m still as lost as ever.”

“Ahtohallan _has_ been teaching you - in its own way” Pabbie corrected her. “The Fifth Spirit started on this path when it brought balance with the restoring of the great river, of correcting your grandfather's actions.

“ _I_ didn’t restore anything” she corrected him sharply, letting go of his hands to squeeze her own as she fought for self control, glancing to the far side of the chamber and the hole in the wall there that led to…the place where she had failed. “It was _Anna_ who made the decision, who took the risks and was willing to sacrifice to destroy the dam.”   
“Indeed it was. As I said, the Fifth Spirit restored the balance.”

Elsa opened her mouth to reply again but closed it in confusion.  
“But … I’m the Fifth Spirit” she pointed out hesitantly to the Troll who nodded.

“Yes, you are” he agreed ... and Elsa felt utterly lost and bewildered. 

“Pabbie you’re not making sense” she said in exasperation, feeling frustration working with exasperation under her skin and making her powers _itch_ in a way they had not in a long time. “We’re not both the Fifth Spirit!”   
  
The troll simply stared at her, tilting his head in a kind of amusement as if she had just made some kind of joke-

_“Show yourself”_ Elsa heard a voice call and she snapped her head around to the great door into this chamber … and saw _herself._ Or at least her similitude of snow and ice walking into the great chamber. Dressed exactly as she had been the first time she walked in. Saying exactly what she had that time. _“We’re no longer trembling!”_

She tilted her head as she forced herself back to her feet, staring in confusion at ‘her’.   
_We’re? I didn’t say-  
_ Then her eyes went wide as ‘she’ turned to look behind her and gesture in excitement … and _Anna_ -or again at least another similitude of her sister- followed her inside. 

_This … this wasn’t what happened!_

“ _Here we are!” ‘_ Anna’ called out in delight and awe. _“We’ve come so far …”_

_“Are you the one we’ve been waiting for?’_ Elsa asked.

_‘All of our lives!’_ her sister echoed as the two figures joined hands. Walking towards her and Pabbie - then vanishing into the mist.

And finally, _finally_ after all this time, the confusion spiraling around her _stopped_ and everything fell into place with almost physical impact that made her take a step back. Like the entire planet had just shifted a meter to the left. Like a giant key slipping into the lock … she **_understood._ **

She understood _what_ Ahtohallan had been calling her here to understand. 

She understood _why_ Ahtohallan had been speaking to her in her sister's voice. Anna begging her not to shut her out, not to deny her. Understood why Ahtohallan had been showing her sisters suffering back in Arendelle.  
Not to taunt her or to make her suffer or rub her failures in her face … but because it was also _her_ suffering. 

Because **_they_ **were the Fifth Spirit!

A new _understanding_ and a _clarity_ of things hit her and resonated through her very being and in a sudden awed _understanding,_ she realized she _had_ heard Ahtohallan explaining before … and simply not understood.

“A bridge has two sides … and mother has two daughters … ” she repeated the words. But this time, she _listened_ as she whispered the words.

The thought had come to her while holding her sister after they had saved Arendelle and Northuldra. A whisper in her mind while they had been together, holding each other, for the first time. A thought she, in her hubris, had taken as her own. Twisting it to say what she _wanted_ it to be rather than hearing what it _meant._ Because she was determined to repeat her mistake of running away from everything and everyone. 

“A bridge has two sides ... but it’s still _one structure”_ she added the words she had been missing. It wasn’t about splitting ‘spirit’ and ‘human’ from each other … it was about how they came together as _one!_

How had she even expected to be part of a bridge between humanity and the spirits if she was going to lock herself away in the forest?!

Turning to face Pabbie again. Half expecting to see him looking at her with an expression that said ‘Oh look, she _finally_ gets it!’, instead, all that was on his rocky face was a gentle, beaming, _pride_ directed squarely at her _._

“Indeed so. You are human Elsa - _and_ Spirit. So too is your sister. This duality has _power._ A power the two of you have only begun to touch the surface of even if Annas is more subtle than yours, it is no less powerful - even the most powerful sorcerers and magicians of ancient times rarely reversed death itself as casually as your sister seems to! I am sure it will take you years to even begin to truly understand - but you have come further than you might think. You have always _been_ the Fifth Spirit - as has she. Indeed, consider the greatest achievements in your life my dear. Have they not been with your sister at your side?”

“Of course they have” she agreed without the slightest hesitation. “And my greatest failures … have always been when I pushed her away.”

“Indeed. So then the only thing you need to decide, is, what is your path _now?”_

Elsa opened her mouth to answer … then closed it and _forced_ herself to stop and _think_ for once rather than just react and compound her errors. Taking the time to think it through from all directions, refusing to be rushed as she paced, Pabbie seemingly content with the patience of a stone to let her work her all-too human way through things. Picturing her sister's face firmly in her mind. But not _just_ her. Kristoff too, that wonderful, wonderful man. And Olaf of course. And Yelena. And Honeymaren and Ryder and everyone in Arendelle too.   
Calmly.   
Drawing on the peace of this place to centre herself and make her decisions not for herself, but for _everyone._

“I … I can’t go back. Not to take the Throne” she decided finally, turning to face Pabbie with a solemn look. “I believe - no. I _know_ in my very soul Pabbie, that Anna will be a Queen far greater than I could ever be - even if she needs help to find her feet. And our people deserve _certainty_ \- it would _destroy_ her forever as the leader she could be if I charged back in and took it back off her now” she considered, working through it as she paced and stopped herself wringing her hands with a scowl. It was a bad habit from when she wore gloves and got anxious, feeling her power threatening to break loose and finding the touch reassuring. 

But now it was just irritating.

“Forcing Anna to take the Throne, not giving her any choice was a grave, selfish act. A dishonor to my family and my people and an insult to my sister … but taking it back now would only compound it all. And I think I still have a place in the Forest. _But''_ she added sharply, taking a deep breath and focusing intently. “I am not, I _will not_ stand aside when she needs me. All the rest of this” she waved around the great room almost indifferently, “the Fifth Spirit; _all_ of it … doesn’t matter. My sister needs me - my _family_ needs me. My _Kingdom_ needs me - because as much as Mother has two daughters, so too did my father!” she didn’t quite throw into the air, as if _daring_ Ahtohallan itself to object somehow as she turned her gaze and focus away from the Troll behind her to swing around the vast room, projecting her voice - no, projecting her very _spirit_ at this place through the connection she still barely understood to make _herself_ clear. Asserting _her_ wishes, _her_ desires for once. Taking a deep breath and finding a new _conviction_ that she wrapped around her like a cloak. 

Amazing how just thinking about her sister, on how she could _help_ her sister, focused her like this!

“So. I’m going back to Arendelle - _now_ . And I’m going to help my sister, _now_ . For as long as she needs me, as much as she needs me, _whenever_ she needs me. I’ll _always_ be there for her and I need to make sure she understands that. And then? _When she decides_ she _is ready_ , I am going to bring her _here_ because _this place_ is her legacy and birthright, just as much as it is _mine_ ” she added, feeling a new confidence and fire lighting inside her and burning away all the emotional wreckage she had covered herself in today as the words poured out of her faster and faster before turning to glance down at the symbols in the floor. So beautiful, yet so … cryptic.

“And … and I still don’t understand what it _means_ to be the Fifth Spirit. But before I can even begin to _try_ and ‘bring balance to the elements’, whatever that means, I have to bring balance to us. So … _that’s_ what I’m going to do!”

Her voice echoed for a moment and then it faded. So too did the mist … and then the glow of the vast cavern walls around her. Leaving only the symbols in the floor, glowing and pulsing with their subdued, yet fathomless power. But even more than that, the gentle ‘invitation’ she had been feeling from Ahtohallan itself seemed to fade and was replaced by …

If she could put it into words, it would be to say that if anything, Ahtohallan was almost cheering her on and telling her to go forth and find her sister. Her other half. Herself. And help them.  
Almost smugly in fact, as if unlike Pabbie, Ahtohallan wasn’t above a ‘Oh look, she finally gets it!’ thought.

“Pabbie” she said, turning to face the ancient Troll, swallowing as she stepped up to him and knelt down to face him directly. “ _Thank_ you” she said and found herself struggling to find the words. “Just … thank you” and on an impulse that surprised her, she reached out and hugged him.

The Troll chuckled and hugged her back, gently patting her on the back.

“No need to thank me, Your Highness” he laughed lightly as she let go and edged back, causing her to tilt her head at that title. She _had_ abdicated her throne of course, but that … didn’t make her any less of a Princess of Arendelle, legally speaking. 

And she doubted Pabbie had chosen his worlds carelessly as they suddenly triggered ideas and plans in her Royally trained mind about how she could go about this - but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as the Troll waved his hand and then started to _glow._ Elsa backed off a little in surprise, not because she felt there was any threat here … but because the enemy was maddeningly familiar. It felt _exactly_ like that energy she felt around…

“The Earth Giants!” she gasped. “You … they …” 

The Troll laughed lightly.

“Yes indeed” he chortled. “Our cousins are rather less talkative, if perhaps far more impressive” the ancient Troll noted. “But it will be good to visit them soon. It has been far too long, but that path is open once again, thanks to you and your sister. And I’m sure _we_ will see each other soon Elsa … but until then I take my leave of you. With just one final word of advice, if I may so presume?”

“Of course?” she immediately agreed, without hesitation. 

“As I said to your sister. Sometimes, when we are lost with problems so large they seem to engulf everything … all you can sometimes do, is do the next right thing” he smiled and with a final friendly wave he flashed … and when she blinked he was gone. 

And she was alone.

_No._ _Never alone my darling, a_ voice called from ... _somewhere._

“Mother?” she breathed in question … but the voice said nothing more.  
  
But then, she - or it - didn’t need to. Her path was clear.

Without a backwards glance, she strode out of the grand chamber. The last time she had left Ahtohallan, it had been falling through the deep well, frozen and rescued by the Nokk waiting under it as her sister lifted the curse that had ended her life and saved her - yet again. She had no intention of leaving _that_ way but she found herself striding faster as she passed through the great columns that lined the path. Then breaking into something more like a jog as she raced back through the tunnels and then up the bridge she had created to link _her_ great columns until she finally burst at a dead run out into the open air and _breathed_ the fresh, salty spray.

It was much later in the day then she had thought as she blinked and squinted against the light. Clearly she had spent more time than she realized wallowing in memories. The sun was already on-or-below the horizon, painting the skies reds and pinks and oranges of all shades that immediately made her think of her sister's hair as she raced down to the shore, closed her eyes and sent her thoughts out-

With an eruption of water and foam, the Nokk surfaced at her call as she reached the shore, rearing and pawing the air in enthusiasm. She smiled as she came to a halt and offered it a bow of her head of respect before swinging up onto its back with ease as it lowered its own head to help her get on. And while she had enjoyed racing across the water with it greatly, right now, she needed to _move_ and almost instinctively, it seemed to know that speed was what she wanted. And almost before she could gasp and hold her breath, it leaped and _dove_ into the water itself-

-and broke the surface of the water moments later, except it broke it in the Fjord, only a few kilometers downstream from Arendelle itself. With a wave of her hands the water soaking her crystalized and flaked off to scatter across the river linking her Mother's home to her Father's home as she saw the Castle itself come into view in the darkening twilight sky, lit up in celebration of her sisters coronation and even from here should could hear the noise of music and celebration. 

At the start of the day she had been determined to stay away. To let her sister take the mantle of the crown upon her without people looking to her nearby, risking undermining her sister's authority.

Now? Now she urged Nokk onwards with all speed towards her old - no, towards _one_ of her homes, letting a wry smile pass onto her face.

She had never crashed a party before in her rather curtailed social life as Queen.

She admitted some degree of excitement at the idea now.


	2. Let it Go

As the Nokk sped towards Arendelle Castle, a thought started to gnaw at Elsa’s mind in a quite distracting way.

_ I’m not ready for this. _

The first time she had approached her home in this fashion, she had been racing the unleashed power of the river that Anna had freed from its long dormancy. Seething with power as it poured forth again, ripping groves of trees casually from the banks and flinging huge rocks into the air like the tantrum of a God as it advanced. A wall of destruction poised to sweep away all of Arendelle in one terrible moment … that she had dared to put herself in front of.   
Unleashing her own power in opposition, a giant snowflake looking as delicate and fragile as a pane of glass had risen to meet the wave of destruction that loomed over the city … 

And it was the  _ water  _ that had recoiled as it smashed into her ice.

Halted in its rampage by her will, the Nokk had then joined its power to hers and whispered to the raging torrent, calming and guiding it to flow around Arendelle. Safely ushering the surge past the city and out to the ocean beyond. And as she had dismissed the wall of her power as the water receded, she had heard a noise.

Turning around to follow the sound, she had seen her people high on the cliffs above who had witnessed the events. Waving and cheering in exaltation at the salvation of their home. Feeling as much as seeing the proud smile Grand Pabby directed to her before she gasped as an invisible surge of raw power washed down past her. In awe she realised then that the magical link that her Grandfather had broken with his dam had now been restored. Washed away by the flood and the debt her family owed now paid in full by Anna-  
And with that, a sudden horrified realisation that Anna surely thought she was still dead, Elsa had wheeled the Nokk around and raced back up the river, without any thought of her people or Kingdom. Determined to find her sister alive and well, point blank refusing to consider  _ any _ other possibility but that she would be waiting for her there...

And now here she was once again racing down the Arenfjord to get to the Castle with all speed … except as she reached the end of this journey, unlike the previous time where she knew  _ exactly _ what to do and had not hesitated to do it, now...

Oh that same  _ force _ was still pushing her to find her sister and make everything right, but as the Nokk slowed its magnificent stride to more of a flowing trot as it edged into the shore, Elsa felt anxieties start to bubble up like churn on the dark sea. Shivering, she lightly dropped to the shore as the Water Spirit halted where the fjords waters gently lapped at the pebbly waterline, her gaze stuck on the suddenly forbidding castle wall just ahead of her, its towers gleaming in the fading reds and purples of twilight and causing her to start wringing her hands- 

She realized what she was doing and forced herself to stop. It was a bad habit from the bad days when she had worn gloves. Wringing them as her anxieties had gotten out from under her control and caused her magic to start doing the same ...

Clearly she was more nervous than she wanted to admit. 

The seductive thought that she could simply turn around, re-mount the Nokk and head back up river without anyone knowing flashed through her mind before she suppressed it a heartbeat later with no small amount of disgust and loathing for even _thinking_ she could turn her back on her sister out of fear. But as she hesitated, the Nokk to her surprise leaned forward and sort of pushed at her, nuzzling her in the back. Silently, gently, prodding her. She glanced at it for a moment then back to the castle, feeling a wry sort of smile twist onto her face for a moment as she suddenly realized she was standing just under the place she had run out of the castle in the middle of the night not even a month ago, finally _compelled_ to call back to the spirits far to the North, unaware that they were just calling to _another_ spirit.   
But only one half of that spirit had been able to hear the call … and it had failed in its duty to guide _both_ halves of the Fifth Spirit to their destiny.

_ Anna  _ she thought again with a sad sigh, looking up at the Castle and hearing the distant noise of celebration. By tradition the Queen wouldn’t make her public entrance into the party until a little later in the evening after sundown, so she still had time to find her … so why did she hesitate now?

Again the Nokk nuzzled her encouragingly and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes in exasperated amusement. It was clear that her standing around and staring was vexing the Water spirit - like the Wind and Fire spirits, it _ was  _ a spirit of motion and movement. Stepping away she turned away and offered it a curtsy and a wordless assurance that she would be fine from here. It in turn inclined its head before turning away, seemingly satisfied as it galloped away from the shore with a magnificence that took her breath away once more before it leaped into the sky, catching the last rays of sun on the water spectacularly and then flowed into the waters seamlessly, vanishing from sight with barely a ripple.

“Show off” she muttered to herself as she shook her head with a small smile, turning back to slowly approach the ancient wall of the Arendelle Castle.

It had been her home - _was still_ her home she hoped - for almost all of her life, but a part of her couldn’t help but feel like an outsider now because of her decisions. Even her own ice, still sheathing the roofs and decorating the arches of the building seemed to judge and even perhaps condemn her return. She had placed it to augment her home, to announce to the world that she would not hide any part of who she was and embraced all of it. Queen, Sister, Magic. With her people and Anna by her side.

But now, the ice covering her home seemed only a harsh rebuke to her turning her back on everything she had built and created here - and everyone who had put their faith in her. Of everything she had walked away from, without so much as a glance over her shoulder...

“I don’t deny my failures” Elsa softly asserted herself to the great fortress of her family as it silently seemed to stand over her in judgement as she approached, reaching out to brush her hand across the ancient moss covered stones as if reconnecting herself to this place. “I accept them. Correct them. And _ learn  _ from them.”  
They were the words of one of her ancient ancestors - exactly which  _ one  _ from the old Viking days was lost to history and translated from ancient runes made it hard to confirm it  _ had  _ been someone from the Royal line she was but one link in a chain of. But the undeniable wisdom to never deny failures but to accept and account for them had been passed down through her family for generations and, ultimately, from their father to both her and Anna.

Her failures did not have to define her. Or bind her.

As a young child, then a young woman she had tried desperately to understand that as she had struggled with her powers … but she had completely missed the point. Too wrapped up in fear. Fear of herself, fear of her powers. Fear of accepting anything less than utter perfection because failure was never an option, not with the horrible consequences that could result.

But Anna had known.

Anna had  _ always  _ known.

Anna had understood the lesson on a level deeper than most anyone else she knew. Every time she fell down she had simply dusted herself off and got back up laughing at herself. Right back up on that horse or bike or whatever other crazy activity she was engaged in. Or when she made a mistake politically she learned from it - then tried not to make the mistake again.

Failure was an  _ inevitability _ and perfection was an  _ impossibility _ . 

Accepting those facts with grace made her human - and in the aftermath of the events at Ahtohallan today, that was a lesson she had gained new clarity upon.   
Life was not about wallowing in your past failures … but about embracing them.  _ Learning  _ from them to move ever forward. To try was to risk failure … and conversely, to avoid failure entirely was to reject any attempt to  _ try _ .

So. How did she embrace her failures and make them right this time? What  _ was  _ ‘The next right thing’ as Grand Pabbie had told her to find?

_ Well,  _ she thought silently as she looked up at the walls, the twilight sky steadily deepening into darker shades of red with the sun well behind the towering mountains now as the sound of a lively celebration came from the castle.  _ It sounds like there is quite the party going on inside _ .   
She did not want to make a spectacle or draw anything away from what should be - had to be - Anna’s day of celebration. If she tried to get in via the front gate and courtyard, which should be thronging with the villagers, the sheer spectacle she would cause-

_ “Who goes there!? _ ” a voice suddenly called from above and she blinked and craned her neck to look up at the wall above her again - and caught the silhouette of what looked like an Arendellian Guard on the wall trying to look down at her. In the shadow of the castle as the sun set, she couldn’t make out that much - but unless she was mistaken...  
Ah. Yes. She knew him. This was Bjorg - one of the ‘newer’ guards who had been promoted from the Royal Navy to replace those half dozen Royal Guards who had been dismissed for falling too neatly and readily into line with Prince Hans and his schemes. A good, solid, loyal and reliable man she recalled - which was exactly  _ why  _ he had been picked for the role.   
And probably also why he was diligently patrolling the battlements while the town was in the middle of what sounded like quite a party…

She greatly approved of him taking his job of keeping her sister safe this seriously.

“It’s just me Bjorg” she called up to him, feeling suddenly just a little whimsy. 

“Oh … wait, who’s  _ me?”  _ he called back down suspiciously after a few seconds and she had to fight the urge to giggle. Clearly he didn’t recognize her. 

Well, she could fix  _ that _ easily enough.

Elsa reached out and let her power loose. She marveled - and not for the first time- at the sheer weight of the power flowing through her since she had risen from the depths of Ahtohallan. She had known her magic was strong and capable of amazing things of course, but whatever had happened in the river of memory had seemingly unlocked barriers she didn’t even realize existed. The sheer  _ power _ she could call upon now without even the slightest of efforts would have terrified her younger self beyond measure. What she could do now if she truly wished would make the Great Freeze of  _ her  _ coronation pale in comparison...  
And yet with the greater power had come equally new depths of control and finesse. As if her Magic now  _ truly  _ had become part of her on a level it had never been before. It was hard to put into words, but it was almost as if before she was a human who used magic … and now she was both human  _ and  _ magic.

Human and  _ spirit _ perhaps in truth.

Thus with a wave of her hand, she/magic flowed from her/magic and solidified into a brightly glowing staircase of exquisitely formed ice with flourishes upon flourishes that materialized under her feet as she climbed into the sky. Rising enveloped in a shimmering light as the staircase rose with her ascension until she reached the top, stepping across onto the stone battlements and holding her hand out to the utterly stunned guard standing there. All in a matter of seconds.

“Just me” she said lightly, feeling almost … impish.  _ Like Anna… _

“Your Majest...I … uh…” the poor guard seemed shocked for words as he belatedly held out his hand and ever so gently took hers, helping her drop lightly to the parapet as with a thought she dismissed the ice, the man glancing aside in awe as the staircase dissolved into snowflakes that dissipated on the wind, then taking in her appearance in her white dress with her hair hanging loose behind her, seemingly lost for words before he tried to rally, roughly clearing his throat. “I … we … hadn’t expected your … uh …” the man tried to get out but was interrupted as a new voice called out across the wall from the main keep.

“What’s going on out here Bjorg?” A sharp new voice cut across the poor man's blubbering and Elsa’s amused and mildly charmed sort of feeling at Bjorg’s reaction and giddy pleasure at her magical demonstration evaporated like frost on a summer morning as she recognized who it belonged to, swallowing hard without realizing she had done so and turning to see a somewhat portly looking man come striding purposefully out of the tower just down the wall. The man's gait slowing in clear shock as he saw her, before continuing towards her with somewhat more  _ deliberate _ steps.

Kai had been her family's steward for a very, _very_ long time. Along with his deputy Gerda, they were also the only two people outside of the Royal Family who had known about her powers. A secret they had also kept from Anna at her parents - and then her - insistence, even though Elsa knew it had caused them considerable pain to do so. They had done everything they could outside of her orders to help her sister though, _insisting_ to her that Elsa loved her and hinting that there were reasons behind everything (so Anna had told her after they had reconnected) becoming almost a second set of parents to Anna after their own parents had died while she stayed hidden behind her locked door.  
They had stayed on through her reign with Kai quickly becoming her most trusted counselor and when she had left for the Enchanted Forest with Anna refusing to stay behind, she had not hesitated in placing him in charge of her Kingdom. He was the most fiercely loyal and warm person she had known all her life…  
_Anothers unconditional loyalty I’ve taken for granted_ _and proven I’m not worthy of_ she realized with a mixture of sadness and weary regret as Kai strode across the parapet. As for the first time in her _life,_ he did not regard her with a smile or the patient kindly expression of the mentor he had been for her on his face.

His face was simply … blank.

It was a look she had seen given people he  _ had  _ to show a certain level of respect to - for their positions and titles alone, but was otherwise either indifferent to or even secretly holding a quiet level of contempt for that he would never show to them.  
_ That  _ look intimidated her more than the Nokk had thrashing her about on the Dark Sea. Or Gale sweeping towards her as a tornado. Or the Earth Giants walking through the Northuldran camp that could have squashed her like an ant … and she swallowed almost against her will as she tried to set herself.

“Bjorg - please wait inside. Tell  _ no-one  _ about our visitor” Kai ordered curtly as he closed in on them. And proving the Guard was well trained and smart, Bjorg nodded firmly to the Steward, bowed to her in haste and then edged past them both to head back inside the castle with as much speed as he could possibly make while keeping his dignity. Leaving just the two of them facing each other in the cool autumn breeze.  
Every Queenly instinct in her body was telling her to seize the initiative in the conversation before he could get started...  
But what  _ could  _ she say to the man who had given his entire life to her family and her service, only for her to turn her back on him and everything he had dedicated his life to without the slightest thought in her mind-

“I have to admit I’m somewhat surprised to see you here today” Kai broke the silence suddenly, his voice causing her to flinch slightly for how painfully  _ neutral  _ it was _.  _ With utterly none of the warmth it had always had for her.

It took a considerable amount of her willpower not to turn away from that gaze and just stare at her feet like she was a ten year old girl …   
But Elsa had willpower to spare and was  _ not  _ ten years old anymore.  
Elsa pulled herself together, looking up and meeting his gaze as she unclenched her fists that had squeezed tightly, taking a deep slow breath of the evening salty air as she looked him in the eye. Repeating her family's mantra silently.

_ I don’t deny my failures. I accept them. Correct them. Learn from them _ .

“Kai. I’m here to see my sister” she said firmly, with some echo of the regal Queen stepping to the front as she gestured minutely with a hand to forestall him as he stirred to reply to that statement. Making it clear that she would  _ not  _ be turned away or deflected in this-

_ No. This isn’t right. _

She let that regal front fade away as she realized that was entirely the wrong tack. Instead she exhaled slightly and put the Queen aside. Marshaling herself and meeting his gaze again.

“Kai, I  _ do _ understand just how badly I have let Anna, you, Gerda, the staff and everyone in Arendelle down with my decision making recently” she admitted in a rather more humble voice. And as painful as it was to admit it, it was also a bit of a relief to confess her sins thus. “I’m here to dedicate myself to working with the Queen to account for the consequences of my actions and support her - _ and  _ Arendelle- however I can through the transition. And if...” she said before having to pause for a second as her voice cracked slightly, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to wring her hands together and glancing away from his piercing gaze as she took a deep breath again.  
“...  _ And if  _ you want to tell me that I’ve lost your trust, your friendship and that you loathe me and hate me for how badly I’ve screwed things up? Then … well, I unders-”

Her voice at that point was cut off by a very unladylike squeak as she found herself being engulfed by a strong set of arms-

Kai … was  _ hugging  _ her?! 

Kai had never,  _ ever  _ hugged her before. He had rarely even  _ touched  _ her, knowing how skittish she was about physical contact with all but a tiny handful of people, even today. Emotions surged inside her as he did so, breaking through her fear and uncertainty like a blast of a whole new kind of power she wasn’t prepared for.

“Oh my poor little Princess” he sighed into the night - and his voice was no longer the flat tone of the stranger who had met her … but that of the man she had known her entire life that she’d feared she had lost forever. “I could _ never _ loathe or hate you Elsa - please don’t  _ ever  _ think that” he assured her and the tension that had been building in her since he had walked out onto the battlements  _ collapsed  _ as she raised her own arms … and hugged him back.  
She didn’t  _ quite  _ cry, but she definitely had to swallow and sniffle somewhat as she simply held onto him, feeling the anxiety and fear that this man of all men might turn his back on her (and be  _ right  _ to do so) slowly start to drain away in his arms.  
Finally, once she felt her poise was back, she relaxed her grip and stepped away, daring to glance up into his face to find it was no longer the flat mask he had presented her but the warm and kind expression of the man who had helped raise her and after a moment, he gestured for her to join him at the battlements, the last parts of twilight slowly giving way to evening as Kai stared out over the waters of the Fjord and the valley it had carved over uncounted millennia...

“A month ago” he said, “I watched as a wave of water hundreds of feet high came thundering down this Fjord. A wall of destruction like nothing I could even begin to comprehend as I watched, helpless to  _ do  _ anything. And then'' he pointed out into the Fjord, slowly moving his arm as if tracking the progress of the wave, “ _ then _ my gaze happened upon a young woman clothed in brilliant white  _ riding a horse made of water _ charging down that wave. Racing to place herself directly in the path of the water. Right there” he added, his hand halting precisely at the place Elsa had indeed made her stand with the Nokk. “And in that moment of bewilderment, I to my horror, realised exactly  _ who  _ that figure was who had trapped herself between an unmovable wall and the unstoppable destruction.”

Elsa opened her mouth to say something, but closed it a second later to let him tell his story.

“I realized that woman was about to try and use her powers to save the city but absolutely certain in my heart that this would be far too much for even her to handle. Even though there was no way she would be able to hear me I screamed for her to run. And as the wave loomed above her and my pitiful voice was swallowed by the roar of ragnarok descending upon Arendelle, I was more certain than I have ever been of anything in my life; that I had failed my promise to your parents. The promise I had sworn to them on the day they had left, that I would keep you and your sister safe no matter what happened...”

The man who had always been a tower of strength for her greater than an Earth Giant … sounded almost  _ broken  _ at the memory, the way he was almost slumping as he gripped the wall with white fingers…  
She still didn’t say anything but after a moment's hesitation, she  _ deliberately  _ reached out and placed her hand on top of his, something she had never done … and a second later his hand loosed its grip on the wall to hold hers firmly, slowly letting out a breath and some tension from his bearing as he seemed to anchor himself with her hand.

“Of course” he observed with a wry sort of smile, still looking out at the waters. “As it turned out you were never  _ in _ any danger. And so we all watched as you unleashed a power that dwarfed even that of a wall of water capable of washing away entire cities. Stopping in its path before  _ commanding  _ it to flow clear of the city with but an imperious wave of your arms! The Queen of Arendelle herself, standing in defense of the city like a Norse Goddess out of legend!”

He shook his head slowly and was silent for a time, Elsa simply standing and holding his hand as the last faint vestiges of twilight slowly vanished into the night.

“It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life” he finally said. “Even watching winter return to summer all those years ago was  _ nothing _ next to that. And” he added, turning away to face her as he let go of her hand, “I don’t think I’ve ever been as  _ proud  _ of you as I was in that moment.”

That statement brought no small amount of heat to her face. Praise had always made her feel slightly … awkward.

Especially around her powers. 

Anna had always been the one encouraging her to accept the praise for things like her (supposed) physical beauty, her powers and her decisions as a ruler because she always felt so awkward doing so. Almost unworthy at times of the praise that came her way, always wondering in the back of her mind how much of it was tinged with the fear of displeasing her given what she had shown she could do…  
But coming from  _ Kai  _ it  _ meant  _ something because he was neither the kind of person to give flattery for the sake of it nor would he ever lie to her.   
And she had to work through the lump in her throat that resulted from his words.

“So Your Highness, while I will admit that some of your decision making confuses me ... after what you  _ did _ for Arendelle? It would be the grossest disrespect and impertinence to even  _ think  _ about hating you for events after you accomplished _ that!” _ he said with no small amount of emphasis. “Her Majesty” and she knew he meant her sister, “has been … somewhat  _ selective  _ over providing me information about what exactly happened in Northuldra. Although between what she  _ has _ told me, what Lord Kristoff has told me and what Olaf has … shall we say let slip?” he suggested earning a faint wince from Elsa, “I think I know  _ enough _ to suggest that whatever happened in the Enchanted Forest changed all of you in ways that none of us can easily understand or you were entirely prepared for. And challenged  _ you  _ in ways that I dearly wish you had never been forced to suffer through, even if you triumphed in the end.”

The unasked question was painfully clear ... yet he still did not ask it.   
Indeed, there were things in her journey that she had never shared with anyone, not even Anna - yet.   
But.  
If there was  _ any  _ person who earned her honesty and the complete truth?  
It was indisputably  _ this  _ man.

Elsa met his gaze and held it … then after a moment, she walked past him. A dozen meters down the wall was one of the turrets and she stepped inside to sit on a stone bench inside, Kai joining her wordlessly, patiently waiting as she tried to marshal her thoughts. The Steward had always been an incredibly good listener, one of her very few close confidants as Queen she felt free to discuss anything political or personal with and seek his counsel, even if more often than not it had just been gentle prodding for her to follow her instincts.

And right now … her instincts told her to tell him everything.

“It all started” she finally started her story, “a little over a month ago. I started to hear a … voice. Wordless, faint. Right after the departure of the Coronan trade delegation...”

And so she told him her story. Of the voice that had haunted her nights and days that had grown louder and louder with the haunting four notes on the wind until she had finally called back and her powers had exploded almost against her will, setting everything into motion as far up the Fjord like a distant thunderstorm, she had seen or sensed the answering pulse of energy that had swept over the land ... and driven them out of their home. The journey into the hinterlands of Arendelle following the call. The friction with her sister as she constantly failed to keep her promises to treat her as a trusted sibling and adult, instead making decisions for her out of the fears she  _ thought  _ she had moved past after the Great Thaw, but oh so easily fell back into during a crisis.  
She told him of the amazing truths she and Anna had learned about their mother and their mother's people. Of finding Gale and Bruni, Kai’s eyes going wide as she matter-of-factly described being swept up by a sapient tornado and fighting a living forest fire. She spoke of meeting Yelena and Honeymaren and Ryder and Mattias before she had left and crossed the dark sea, somewhat … downplaying the ‘events’ with the Nokk, she really didn’t want to distract the man.  
She strongly suspected he knew exactly what she was doing, but he said nothing and let her keep talking as she described with a smile of wonder stepping onto the sacred ground of Ahtohallan itself. Trying to with mere  _ words _ relay to Kai the events inside the glacier as she sought out the voice - now loudly triumphant - as it guided her deep inside … 

Only to find out that she had found herself. 

A part of her she didn’t know existed and had now been reunited with, her powers growing as she joined or perhaps rejoined with the power deep in the glacier and found herself connected with all the spirits therein. Finding a sense of peace, purpose and destiny so profound she stumbled over her words to describe it, but it seemed he could read her face and he in turn only looked at her with approval and pride. Elsa remembering that moment, when all the answers she had waited for had come together in a glorious crescendo … followed by answers to questions she had  _ not  _ asked.

She hugged herself now, her joy fading back to somber regret as a chill that had nothing to do with the evening breeze washed across her body. She sniffled slightly and leaned into Kai as he put an arm around her shoulder wordlessly, the warmth of another living person making it easier for her to focus on the next part of the story as she haltingly told him of the nursery rhyme her mother and always sung for her and Anna, a folktale she now knew from Northuldra that had far more truth in it then she had accepted as she discovered the memory of her Grandfather.

As matter of factly as she could, she told him how she had died.   
  
Frozen just like Anna had been - but due to her arrogance and hubris in pushing her sister away,  _ this  _ time she didn’t have Anna around to save her life. She explained how it happened, discovering the horrible truth her Grandfather had hidden from their people and his family. The great evil that counted against everything Arendelle stood for that he had performed and how in the last second of her life she had managed to send that information down that link she had to Olaf and - she hoped - her sister.

And then, silent tears flowing down her cheeks, she had told him the  _ hard _ part of the story.

She could feel Kai tensing next to her as she explained how before crossing the Dark Sea she had betrayed Anna one final time after the two of them had found out the truth about their parents' deaths. She told him of how the sunshine in all their lives had (literally and figuratively) reached rock-bottom in a cave buried in the Earth Giants range after she had shifted the burden of saving the Forest and Arendelle to her sister. Olaf, that indomitable snowman and her sister's best friend dying in her arms - which also told Anna that  _ she  _ had died too. Leaving Anna, Princess of Arendelle trapped alone in the cold dark with the most horrible burdens and choices resting in her hands.

She had to hold herself silent for a time as she fought to regain her composure, Kai blessedly waiting in a respectful silence as she cleaned up her face and centered herself…

And then she told him the  _ greatest _ part of the story. A small smile slowly coming to her as she let her sheer pride and awe at what had transpired next, show in full.

For Anna had proven - again - that she was just so much _stronger_ than Elsa could _ever_ be. As, one step at a time, she had _s_ aved _herself_. Pulling herself, alone, up and out of the cave and back into the light. Finding deep inside herself the willpower to keep doing the next right thing one after the other, no matter how much she was hurting. Setting aside the loss of both her and Olaf for now to do what she had to do. And in that moment, as far as she was concerned, Anna had been crowned the Queen of Arendelle. A woman who _loved_ Arendelle and its people, loved every street, every tree, every creaking plank on the docks … and she had faced the terrible choice head on. Paying the awful price to atone for the evil of their Grandfather and debt he had levied. Actions and faith that had been rewarded in turn with her release from what would have been her eternal icy prison; free to save Arendelle in turn. The two sides of the Fifth Spirit each doing their part as only they could in balance to save all.  
And then her joy faded as she slumped into the unyielding stone bench and explained now to Kai how at that point of triumph, she had _completely_ missed the lesson about how she and Anna needed to work together _._ Instead, she not quite bitterly explained how she had made Anna the Queen in her _oh so clever_ way to justify her leaving for the Enchanted Forest, still far too flush with the revelations of _what_ she was to remember _who_ she was as in a matter of minutes she decided to turn her back on her entire life on a technicality. Not even thinking for a moment of the consequences to her sister, until Ahtohallan _itself_ had stepped in this very morning to _make her understand_ the depths of the damage she was doing to the other half of the Fifth Spirit with her incredibly selfish decisions.

The last vestiges of sunset had vanished by the time Elsa finished her story. And so now she waited in the darkness lit only by the incidental light from the castle, waiting as Kai absorbed everything.  
Until finally he patted her gently on her shoulder and stood up, Elsa nervously looking up at him, the gravity of the moment making her stomach twist more than a bit. Kai was one of very few people she would trust to give her an honest appraisal and fair critique of her performance over this crisis and she thus braced herself for-

“I must say you’re being rather too hard on yourself, your Highness” he finally said.

She blinked. That was ... not what she was expecting.

“I’m only being fair-” she tried to correct him calmly but he shook his head sharply and cut her off with a gesture from his hand.

“No - and frankly you’re too emotionally compromised by events to look at this objectively” he dismissed her protest with a gesture, his gaze focused on her in a way that made her flinch (and feel) like a little girl again being chided for making a silly mistake in her schoolwork.  
“The end result of your actions -and your sisters- over the last month” he continued, raising a hand and counting off his fingers, “are  _ one  _ ancient wrong Arendelle did under your Grandfather atoned for and a debt paid in full.  _ One  _ Enchanted Forest and the people inside freed from the mist and the spirits brought back into balance with us. And one Kingdom saved by your  _ personal  _ efforts. Accomplishing any  _ one  _ of those things would have been a worthy legacy for any Queen - to accomplish all of them? That is something you don’t see happen out of  _ legends _ . And to expect everything to just ‘go back to normal’ after everything that happened? After your changing like this? Your Highness” he shook his head, “we both know you’re  _ smarter _ than that, so please stop with the self pity.”

She glanced away for a moment at that, feeling more than a little chided, chewing her lip as he continued.

“You did _not_ abrogate your responsibilities. I’d dare say you did what far too many rulers in history have failed to do; _understood their limits_ and delegated authority. Being a Queen is a full time job that even in the best of times demands your absolute attention and best efforts. Abdicating to your heir was a _sensible_ decision, for the good of Arendelle. Burning a candle at both ends simply means you melt twice as fast.”

She considered that - and  _ forced  _ herself to consider it carefully - before shaking her head slowly, but surely.

“Kai, it doesn’t matter if it _was_ a sensible decision - or even the correct one - _in hindsight_. Not if I made it for entirely selfish and short sighted reasons for my own sake without even considering any of these things. The truth is I dumped everything into Anna’s lap simply because it was _convenient_ to do so _._ I didn't do it out of any more consideration than that - and I’m not going to lie and pretend I did it to make myself feel better” she said firmly.

Kai said nothing for a time, simply studying her with a focused gaze that seemed to be testing her commitment to this position. Elsa digging deep to find the strength to meet it head-on without flinching, but also without rancor.

Finally he nodded once.

“I still think you’re simply being too hard on yourself - right up to the edge of self pity to make yourself feel better by forcing yourself to feel  _ bad _ ” Kai said frankly and Elsa didn’t like the way his words seemed to piece her heart and ring disturbingly true inside it. “But in the end, Your Highness … I think it simply proves you are still just as flawed and just as  _ human _ as all of us. Just as capable of making mistakes - but unlike  _ far _ too many of us, you can  _ recognize  _ and move to correct them” he said and Elsa inclined her head at the judgement, accepting it before he changed his posture slightly, stepping up to her and putting on a reassuring look. “And while I know Anna has been having a somewhat difficult time adjusting, she’s had an incredible amount of things to adjust to - and she  _ is  _ adjusting. She’s come a long way indeed I daresay even in just the last few weeks and with Lord Kristoff’s help-”

“She’s been breaking down in tears when she’s alone Kai” she cut him off softly, closing her eyes and fighting the urge to cry herself as that raw memory of her sister in front of the mirror,  _ crying  _ and saying to  _ her  _ that she couldn’t do this. “Then, she’s been having nightmares at night” she added heavily, opening her eyes to catch the horrified look in Kai’s eyes before he smothered it.   
Clearly  _ that  _ revelation had surprised him and she felt a spike of genuine frustration that Anna was hiding such things from the one man who should have been - and was always utterly willing to be!- the greatest tower of support for the monarch of Arendelle.

_ Then again Elsa,  _ she asked herself angrily in her head,  _ did you ever  _ tell  _ Anna how much you relied on him - and to trust to him for counsel?  
_ Once again, it seemed her own failures were compounded when it came to how they impacted upon her sister.

“She’s repeating  _ my  _ mistakes and missteps” she continued after a moment to collect herself, her tone and gaze certain as she stared down the other fearlessly, with not a trace of doubt in her heart. “She’s burying every doubt, every pain and every bit of justified sadness or resentment towards me she  _ should  _ feel for my actions. Concealing it all, trying not to feel and putting on a show for everyone. So I’ll correct my mistakes and I’ll make it clear to Anna that I’ll be  _ right  _ at her side for as long as she needs me to be. I’ll be there to provide whatever help she needs with the technical aspects of ruling, or just as a shoulder to lean on and help her out if things get too much, whatever she needs. And I’ll show all of Arendelle that I’m back - no, that I never really left” she corrected herself quickly. “And I’ll make everyone understand that they now have the greatest Queen in our nation's history on the Throne,  _ bar none. _ No matter what it takes Kai. No matter what.”

She hadn’t intended to make a speech then … but ...

The Steward regarded her carefully for a time.

“And then what? What do you intend for  _ yourself  _ once your Sister is secure and confident on her Throne?” he asked her pointedly. 

“Then I’ll serve Arendelle in whatever capacity she needs me to” she said without hesitation. “While also performing my responsibilities to Northuldra and Ahtohallan  _ and  _ Anna as one half of the Fifth Spirit to the other. I can’t say I even understand let alone can claim to have found that balance yet, but I’m determined  _ to _ find it and maintain it” she said and she found herself actually taken slightly aback at herself at how those words had just come from her without thinking … and how  _ right  _ they felt. 

And it seemed Kai agreed because after a moment he offered her a nod … and then a hand.

“Then in that case Your Highness, we should get moving. We have much work to do” he said and Elsa felt a surge in her heart as Kai came fully on side with that look on his face that always told her that he knew  _ exactly  _ what to do as she smiled and accepted the hand to get to her feet.  
  


* * *

  
The Queen needed to stay at the party for at least three hours. 

It wasn’t a  _ law,  _ but Elsa knew every Royal protocol and every social expectation of the Arendellian Court by heart and knew that in a major event like a coronation, the Monarch and the members of the Royal Family who were of age would be expected to present themselves a short time after sunset … then stay for at  _ least  _ three hours to ‘schmooze’. And as she looked over the quietly ticking clock on the sidebar, she could see that they were only fifteen minutes from the point where it would no longer be considered terribly unseamly for the Queen to leave.

_ Anna always stayed  _ Elsa reflected with a gentle sort of sigh as she paced slowly in the waiting room. With the gates opened up again, Anna had  _ delighted  _ in every party and hosted event while she had been a somewhat reluctant guest - at least at first. Her sister however had pushed and prodded and all but  _ bullied  _ her at times to stay longer and ‘loosen up’. ‘A nervous wallflower shyly unfolding its petals’ Anna had called her - but over the months after the Great Thaw she had  _ slowly  _ come to relax and overcome her anxieties of crowds and public events. With her sister by her side as an endless fountain of support she  _ had  _ genuinely changed from the woman who had been determined to close the gates of the Castle as soon as possible after her coronation into one who actually -dare she think it-  _ enjoyed  _ the occasional party. 

Especially if it was one with the people of Arendelle as opposed to the Royal Court or foreign dignitaries.

The last party she had attended had been the harvest festival and while she had been somewhat distracted by the call of Ahtohallan, she had still truly enjoyed her time on the town, the Royal Sisters among the last to leave and walk back across the bridge to their castle, the event giving her peace for at least a few hours from the haunting siren...

Nonetheless, she somehow knew in her soul that Anna would be leaving early tonight. She would surely not close the gates or usher everyone out, happy to let everyone enjoy the music, food and fun until the traditional midnight close if they wished… but she knew that this day would have pushed her sister to her very limits as the reality of the crown of Arendelle settled onto her head - without her there to offer support...  
And so she had waited patiently. Secretly. Kai 'smuggling’ her into the Castle with no-one the wiser and leaving her in this room near the ballroom with Bjorg on duty outside to ensure she wasn’t disturbed, Kai leaving several times to fetch several things from her room - that Anna had left  _ exactly _ as she had left it...

Now however the door at the far end of the room opened, cutting off her thoughts and she turned expectantly to see Kai and-

“Gerda” she called softly as the older woman turned at her name to see her on the far side of the room - and froze rigidly in place, her face set in utter shock.

Elsa held her composure as Kai slipped in behind the older woman and shut the door, Elsa hesitantly stepping towards her … then seemingly between blinks she found herself suddenly staggering back a step as she was all but  _ engulfed  _ by the older woman, with arms of iron wrapping around her into a hug that rivaled anything Anna had put her through.  
She sharply inhaled at the ferocious contact … then rallied and after only a moment of hesitation, raised her own arms and returned the embrace. Closed her eyes as the two women simply held each other in silence until the older woman finally released her, stepping back a little to stare into her face.

“Part of me wants to slap you for what you’ve put The Queen through over the last month” she said very directly and sharply without any preamble … and Elsa accepted the rebuke with a nod. After getting chewed out by Kai before he made it clear he both forgave her personally and was ready to help her correct her mistakes, she had found a calmness, an acceptance in her soul. And in that balance, she accepted the deserved rebuke in silence as Gerda held her gaze … before her eyes softened considerably.  
“But … I can already see you’ve slapped  _ yourself  _ \- and harder than either anyone else ever could, would  _ or  _ should” she observed shrewdly and Elsa glanced away for a second before a gentle finger under her chin brought her gaze back. “And I can also see that you’ve come determined to help your sister. And that’s all that matters; it’s  _ good  _ to have you back home, your Highness...” she welcomed her, emotion she had never heard before leaking into her voice.

“It’s good to be back Gerda” she agreed with a soft smile, her spirits lifting - 

“-but you still are entirely hopeless at dressing yourself” the older woman huffed and as if a switch had been flipped she was off, stepping to the side and starting to fuss and  _ yank _ and shift her dress without the slightest care for her dignity, personal space or noble rank, ‘correcting’ things all over with a clicking noise and mutterings.

And Elsa would not have it any other way, unable to help but share a secret bashful sort of smile with Kai who turned away to start fussing with the wooden box he had brought in and placed on the table as Gerda continued to mutter and move around, adjusting the fit of her clothes.  
Elsa had been dressing herself, doing her own hair, makeup and everything else needed since she was a teenager, loathe as she had been to let _ anyone  _ touch her. Gerda had been with her the whole time though, offering advice and helping her however she could. Even directly assisting her with things such as her hair on her better days, few of them as there had been after her parents had died. But after that glorious day when her sister had taught her those three magical words of ‘Love Will Thaw’, the older lady had gotten  _ very  _ hands on with helping her dress in the much more elaborate clothes the Queen was expected to dress in - and even offering much advice on her own ice creations when the mood struck her to go that way.

And even more critically in recent years, Gerda had provided utterly invaluable backup to shoot down some of Anna’s more …  _ outlandish _ suggestions come demands about what she should wear.

Thus, Elsa found herself perfectly content to stand still and let the older woman fuss over her in the new dress. It was cut quite similar - deliberately so - to her original ice dress, but a deeper blue and with a slightly more  _ modest  _ slit making it less provocative (but still far more daring than most court dress was). It was a product of one of the village dressmakers and she was immensely proud of its local quality; it matched anything she could have had handmade in Corona or France - and she had been looking forward to wearing it at the surprise birthday party Anna had been trying to secretly organize for her later in the year...

Instead, she would wear it today to announce her return in a different kind of surprise.

She had eschewed her choice of shoes for heels of ice - their elegance aside, they were simply far more  _ comfortable  _ as the ice unconsciously adjusted to her stride and movements. She had also fashioned a hair clip out of ice - in the shape of her signature snowflake, gathering her platinum blond hair at the back of her neck but letting it hang loose from there as a sort of halfway between the braid most of Arendelle was familiar with and her growing preference to just let her hair hang loose. She had spent much of her time in the room running a brush through her hair to clear tangles (she had been more than a little shocked at how many leaves and tiny twigs had come out, making a note to bring some brushes back with her back to Northuldra) and then she had applied some choice makeup and put on a royal sash and she now awaited Gerda’s approval-

“No, no no.  _ This _ doesn’t fit at all child” Gerda sighed, tapping the dramatic (and she thought, quite handsome) sash running from her left shoulder, to her right waist.

“Gerda - it’s the sash of the Royal House of Arendelle!” she objected, feeling mildly scandalized at being told it didn’t fit. The purple and green sash with the embroidered and threaded crocus that sat just under her shoulder over her heart had been chosen by her to show her loyalty and allegiance to Anna and the Crown and it was  _ critical  _ she did that. That was the whole point of this little game! “I need everyone to know I’m here at least partially as a member of the Royal Family.”

“Already taken care of” Kai called happily from behind her and she pivoted from the mirror she had been looking into -

And froze.  
Because Kai was holding a tiara.   
_ Her _ tiara.

_ Not  _ her crown - which was still up on the North Mountain on Marshmallows head the last time she had seen it, a sight so ridiculous that Anna had collapsed to the ground in laughter when  _ she  _ had seen it on their first re-visit to her Ice Palace, apparently hurting her snowmans feelings and causing him to walk off and sulk until Anna had apologised and agreed it suited him, making Olafs ‘little brother’ almost childishly happy...  
No, this tiara had been given to her when she had been formally invested as the Heir Apparent at fifteen years old. She had worn it exactly four times given how little she had been seen in public and then it had been packed away with the rest of the crown jewels as she had ascended to Queen.

She hadn’t thought to ever see it again, but instantly, her mind snapped in on why Kai had brought it back out.

Wearing the crown of the Heir Presumptive - a status she had been moved back into per the abdication letter she had signed until Anna had a child - while Anna wore the crown of the Queen, would make a very clear message about how she saw herself.

That she was part of the Royal Family, now and always. But as a subject of  _ her _ Queen.

She took a breath but stepped closer to Kai and very carefully bowed her head to him in silence. There was a feeling of hands in her hand - then a familiar, distant weight in it that brought back so many memories good and bad as she walked back carefully, making sure it was firmly in place as she turned to face the mirror, regarding the silver and diamond encrusted band running across her head with mixed emotions.

“But this sash...” Gerdas voice tutted in her ear, dragging her attention back, causing Elsa to frown slightly as she studied her reflection in the mirror.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she continued to study her image, feeling a gentle sadness as she couldn’t help but think of her mother...

“Because it's overkill my dear” the older woman explained. “Your Tiara shows Arendelle that you are standing by your sister and family.  _ But _ you also need to remind everyone of who you are - who you  _ really  _ are. Remind _ everyone  _ of the woman who with a wave of her arm saved this city from destruction with power that rivals the legends of old. Of the Queen you used to be, of the Spirit of the Enchanted Forest you  _ are.  _ Now, from what the Queen has told me, in between shoveling food into her mouth at breakfast, that wonderful scarf of your mothers was more than a beautiful heirloom. It told a  _ story _ . This” she said, brushing a hand gently down the sash, “would be the ideal place to, I think,  _ also  _ tell that story” she suggested with a pointed look and Elsa got her meaning at once.The suggestion resonated with her with a sudden and almost  _ overwhelming  _ force as she stood there dumbfounded, staring at the other woman for a while before finally managing to speak.

“Gerda you are, I think, the most wise woman I’ve  _ ever  _ met” she said simply.

“Pah! No child, I’m just old” she waved her away and Elsa couldn’t help but be reminded greatly of Yelena back in the Enchanted Forest for a moment...

“Now I have to get back to the room and make sure Her Majesty doesn’t try to skip out. Kai - please don’t mess this up dear” she added over her shoulder as she stalked away, the older man simply raising an eyebrow into a long suffering look at her back (once she had turned away) that Elsa knew full well belayed the deep affection the two staff had for each other as she vanished through the door.

After a moment's thought, Elsa turned away and walked across to the closed windows that looked up the Fjord. With a twist and push, the chilled salty evening breeze washed over her and breathed deeply as she regarded the night. With only a little effort, she found the glittering spark of her Ice Palace still sitting proudly atop the North Mountain - and she could  _ see  _ in her mind far beyond it as she closed her eyes and just felt the breeze moving past her. Past the mountains down to the plains where the wild forests of Northuldra in their vast autumn foliage of browns and pinks and reds took shape. Closing her eyes as she let her mind take her back, the smells, sights, sounds and the very taste of the forest flowing into her as she took a slow breath and reached for her centre…

And as she exhaled, so too did magic flow out of her.

Slowly, much as when she had made her ice dress, her magic washed around her. Focusing over and through the sash that she used as an anchor. But unlike her Ice Dress, this time she weaved and remade the sash not simply with her magic … but with  _ herself.   
_ In Ahtohallan, in that profound moment she had ascended, the symbols of the four other spirits had lifted off the flawless ice and adhered themselves to her.

Not to her clothes, but to  _ her. _

Even as she had later dismissed that fantastic dress, the  _ magic  _ had remained a part of her and she knew it would forever be with her. Where it was always  _ supposed  _ to be. And so with only the most trivial of efforts, it came forth as she focused now; four diamonds flowing out of her very spirit and soul to etch themselves into the now crystalline white of her sash, each of them shimmering from the power infusing it with vibrant colour.

Green for Earth, shimmering with facets. 

Fire was the purple Bruni so favored and seemed to change wildly inside with every shift of light.

Air was the pale blue of the sky at noon that Gale so liked to rush through with subtle structures wildly looping back upon itself.

And water was unsurprisingly the same deep glow of the Nokks eyes that seemed to go to an infinite depth...

Finally up on her shoulder did she will her diamond - no, the diamond  _ of her and Anna _ \- to materialize and with a gleam it did so, shimmering with a subtle light inside that stood out proudly. And in a final flourish, from her shoulders and upper arms the two gossamer like cape ‘wings’ of her dress from Ahtohallan appeared and fluttered to lightly dance in the air and drape down her back...

Elsa opened her eyes.

All this had been done in one exhale of her breath and as the glow of her magic faded she reached back to close the window and then turned to regard herself in the mirror.  
She smiled at the end result and turned to her former Steward, who held a look on his face of awe and pride.

“Your Highness” he greeted her simply with a bow.

“Thank you Kai” she said softly when he finished, stepping close to once again hug him firmly. “Thank you for everything. As always.”

“As always” he said as he gently patted her back before they separated and he offered an elbow that she took gladly as they moved towards the door. “You do of course know what the worst part about all this is?” 

Elsa couldn’t help but giggle slightly.

“Greda is going to be making ‘I told you so’ faces at us for the rest of the night?”

“Try the rest of the week” he sniffed … and the two of them after a moment broke into full scale laughter.

Now.  _ Now  _ she was ready.

* * *

Elsa realized that she had never actually entered the Throne Room during a formal event from the main doors.  
It was an odd thing to realize, but as the Crown Princess and then the Queen, she had always entered from the side doors at the ‘Throne’ end of the room, never from the large doors at this end. 

Of course she suppose she still  _ could  _ have done so, but Kai clearly wanted to make as big a splash as possible so here she was, waiting patiently outside with a pair of Royal Guards standing and ready to open the doors who were doing their very best to stand rigidly at attention and not keep sneaking glances at her when they thought she wasn’t looking. The door was closed and would normally be left closed for the night after the Queen arrived - any latecomers would be expected to use the Western doors and slip in that way. 

Indeed, for Kai to  _ announce _ someone after the Queen herself had arrived was quite a violation of protocol. Which was why he was doing it; it would emphatically get the attention of  _ everyone _ in the room - the Queen included…

And now the loud noise of conversation was slowly fading away as the music -which had stopped several minutes ago- restarted and Elsa felt raw emotions run through her as the haunting thrumming of the lute was joined by a counterpoint melody of strings as achingly familiar to her as it was unexpected for her to hear it. 

Kai … clearly was making a point here and she had to fight back a surge of emotion. And although no-one inside sang the words leaving it as an instrumental led by a haunting deep stringed instrument … Elsa felt her lips silently moving.

_ ‘Where the North Wind, meets the sea … there’s a River … full of memory.’ _

That nursery rhyme that her mother had sung to her and Anna only a few times, but had clearly meant an enormous amount to her. The secret of her heritage held so close that Elsa did not even know if their Father had known who his wife truly was?   
Now with the understanding she had seen in Ahtohallan Elsa could only feel awe towards her mother. The woman who had sacrificed everything to save her father. Managing to call upon Gale even as Gale and the other spirits had turned on the people in the forest, the wind spirit had  _ still _ come to help her mother...  
_ Did you understand it would mean you would be forever cut off from your home?  _ Elsa wondered silently.  _ Were you just  _ that  _ strong, that loving and selfless that you would give it all up to save another's life? The life of one boy you barely even knew? _

Was it truly a surprise if she was  _ that  _ selfless that the spirits had chosen to gift her two daughters who would become the key to all their salvation?  
_ But if so,  _ why  _ did you  _ kill _ her and Father…  _ Elsa couldn’t help but ask before she pushed the thought to the side once again as the song wound its way through the bridge. The conversation having now reduced greatly inside the great room, there were three great  _ thumps  _ she could feel even through the floor and closed doors. Thumps that would be Kai crashing his rather impressive staff of office into the ground from just on the other side of the door.

_ “Your Majesty. My Lords and Ladies. Honoured guests all; I beg your indulgence to present our final guest for the night”  _ he called as the two Guards opened the doors as the music rose in power towards the next chorus. “ _ Presenting Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elsa of Arendelle!”  _ Kai declared and with precise timing and poise, Elsa came around and through the doors.

A part of her, the  _ old  _ her wanted to freeze into immobility as she saw just how  _ full  _ the Throne room was. Easily two or three times the people that had been present for her own coronation were packed into it, with a fantastic and stunning array of dresses, suits, uniforms and clothes of all kinds creating a wondrous and fantastic display of colour and movement in the candlelight that she knew instantly Anna would have found utterly intoxicating… 

And they were  _ all  _ staring at her.

The larger part of her, that had been The Queen, did  _ not  _ flinch as she strode through the doors, glancing away from the stunned crowd for a heartbeat to grace Kai with the exact regal requirements to acknowledge his announcement, earning a deep formal bow in return before turning back as she stepped off the slight raised floor around the door…  
And then with perfect timing, the music  _ pulsed _ with a key change as she started to walk down the red carpet at a measured, perfectly chosen walk  
Kai had very clearly given instructions (and Anna had clearly packed something of a half orchestra up the back rather than the small band she had indulged at her coronation!) because now the melody was taken up by a blast of brass worthy of a Royal fanfare as the key changed. The words still silently sounding in her mind as it played...

_ ‘Where the North Wind, meets the sea…’ _

The massed crowds in her path parted silently as if she was a great ship cutting through water, people moving to either side to clear out of her path. She had, somewhere in her mind that still always braced for the worst, the legacy of her years of fear, expected expressions of disdain, accusation or even fear from the crowd … 

But it turns out she couldn’t have been more wrong.

Women curtsied so deeply as they passed into her wake that some edged into genuflections as she silently flowed past. More than one man (who might have had too much to drink) silently let tears flow down their face as she approached and they bowed deeply in a cascading wave, joy and awe at her presence flowing around her as Elsa tried to meet as many eyes as she could to acknowledge her sisters guests … but there were so many!

_ ‘There’s a mother full of memory!’ _

Her heart fluttered as she moved forward, realizing that among the guests were a great many people from Arendelle Village in their finest clothes. So, it was not just the nobility, but the good, kind and  _ worthy _ folk that Anna had become so beloved by present - and to her great delight, her sister had clearly thrown convention to the four winds and invited them to  _ her _ party instead of letting them gather in the courtyard and damn whatever some stuffy protocol advisor would say.   
Her own smile widened as she spied to her left, sort of hiding in the shadow of her father's leg she peaked around, young little Hannah watching her with a look that mixed awe and joy in a profoundly innocent way. Elsa smiled back at her, silently thanking her for her unknown guidance earlier this day with an incline of her head that caused the young girl's mouth to open in some amazement and shock at the singular acknowledgment as she swept onwards.

_ ‘Come my darling homeward bound…’  _

She could almost hear her mother's voice, urging her to take the last steps towards her true home. The person who had  _ always  _ been her true home. Passing through the most senior of the nobility now who had unsurprisingly congregated as close to the Throne as possible. People she had personally worked quite closely with, most of whom offered her bows and curtsies of genuine respect, but in her hyper-aware state she  _ easily  _ picked out a near half-dozen in a group whose body language all but  _ screamed  _ to her that they were  _ not  _ happy she had returned.

_ No doubt,  _ she thought silently in a quiet fury hidden behind her pleasant face; _ these people are the miserable excuses for nobles making Anna’s transition hell and trying to undercut her confidence and self belief... _

After all, they had done the same to  _ her _ .

These five men had also tried to play games after the somewhat shaky start to her reign. Anna may have thought that they were looking down at her because she was not the Snow Queen, but in hindsight, she wondered if they might well have secretly been supporters of her Grandfather and his ‘opinions’ on magic? Perhaps indeed that was the case…

_ Or _ perhaps they were just power hungry men who never understood that their position in the regency was always a temporary one and  _ they  _ did not rule Arendelle no matter how much they thought themselves indispensable to doing so.   
She would not put it past them to be trying to make Anna think they were measuring their new Queen against  _ her  _ and finding her sorely lacking, the better to convince Anna to give power to them and turn her into a nice little figurehead … or puppet.

Well, she would make them  _ deeply  _ regret that-

_ Stop, she _ told herself sharply before she let herself get carried away and do something … foolish (but oh so satisfying) as her magic  _ pulsed  _ inside her.   
No. She’d talk with her sister - and with Kai - and deal with this  _ together.  _ The right way. And not make possibly ill informed assumptions based on nothing more than the hints of contempt, anger but mostly  _ fear _ she had felt in their gazes at her...

As satisfying as flicking her wrist and flinging the old fools against the far wall would be...

So she strode past them without a second glance and let her temper dissipate behind much more warm feelings as she made eye contact and exchanged smiles with the  _ far  _ larger number of nobles around her who offered her  _ genuine  _ looks of support, regard and warm approval as she passed through them every inch a Royal of Arendelle, the music changing in a way she had never heard her mother sing as it rose towards a climax; a triumphant fanfare drawn out as the last of the people shifted out of her path...

_ ‘When all is lost …  _

She dismissed her grand white cape trailing behind her with a thought as she stepped up onto the raised area around the throne. A shimmer of her magic causing it to float away and dissolve into snowflakes that in turn dissipated in a wave of light, causing an awed hushed noise to pass through the room as she (in a not-so-subtle way) reminded them of her magic and showed it off for those who had not yet seen it. But she had little time to take in their reactions, because standing in front of the Throne, in the same place, were three people she recognized with all her heart and soul.

_ ‘Then all is found.’ _

The first was the High Queen.

Her hair, for the first time in her memory, had been braided up into an exquisite coil that wrapped around her head leaving an almost coy fringe behind. Her dress was a masterwork; the same black and green colour scheme as  _ her _ coronation dress, but with a daring asymmetrical curve almost like a sash from her left hip to right shoulder dividing the colors, with golden braid chasing along it. Two tiny emerald studs of earrings matched the golden crown that sat lightly on her head; a gold and emerald construct with breathtaking detail woven through it.   
_  
Regal _ was a description she felt was  _ pathetically  _ inadequate for the person standing before her that blazed with  _ maturity  _ and  _ authority _ .   
  
Yet the High Queen wasn’t alone. Standing with her in the same space and time was another woman.

Elsa had spent most of her life looking at  _ this  _ woman, from a distance. Watching her from her room's window and from behind the cracks of doors when she dared. From the tops of stairs and from ends of passages. From the pages of letters and the stories of her parents and the few others they had both engaged with, for years and years and years.

Which meant that she was perhaps the only person to recognize the timid and above all  _ lonely  _ girl standing before her.

She could see the tiny lines in her face, that makeup could not hide - not from her . She could see her in the way her thumbs were absently running against her index fingers without stopping. She could see it in the slump of her posture and the rigid way she was holding herself. The slight bending of her knees and the slightly pale skin that no-one else would have noticed under the slightly above average use of makeup that would have told her, even without Ahtohallan showing her, that she was tired and edging towards overwhelmed … but utterly determined to never show weakness to the world.

But neither the High Queen nor the Tired Girl were present for more than the time it took her eyes to blink. Because in that time, both of them were viciously and  _ ruthlessly  _ flung away to make way for the third person who took centre stage.

Her sister.

It was sheer, pure, unadulterated  _ joy  _ that washed over her like a wave as their gazes met. Piercing every barrier she might have put up. It told her that no matter what had happened to the two of them, no matter how she had felt up until moments ago ... the simple fact that Elsa was here, now and standing before her? 

That was the  _ only  _ thing in the world that mattered.

Again, she felt a horrible clenching around her heart at Anna being so readily, desperately,  _ easily _ able to forgive her the gross tresspasses she had made against her if it meant she was here with her. As if it was  _ all _ that mattered and her grave crimes were as nothing...  
But for now she found the strength to ignore it. There would be time enough to truly earn her sister's pardon later for her sins - right now, this was about supporting  _ her  _ in any way she could. 

And the first thing she needed to do, to all those in this room whose thoughts were political, was this.  
Lowering her hands to gently gather the sides of her dress as the last echoes of the trumpets faded from the room, Elsa took a subtle breath … and curtsied.

Low. And deep. _Far_ more than mere Court Protocol would have suggested was proper, _far_ more than her instructors would have ever wanted her to do as she bowed her head to the limit her tiara would take without falling off.   
There was something of a low intake of breath from the crowd as she held her position while feeling her sister's gaze on her head as she spoke for the first time since entering the room.

“My Queen” she said clearly and firmly and with the most subtle of inflections upon the ‘My’ that she could almost  _ feel  _ the ripple of understanding pass through the senior Court about what she was saying as she after several long seconds, finally rose back to her feet and brought her head back up to its normal proud position and met Anna’s eyes. “I apologise for my tardiness in-”

_ That  _ was as far as she got before, with utterly no regard for protocol or decorum or what Elsa was trying to do, Anna  _ flew  _ four meters faster than even Gale could move to fling her arms around her and crash into a fierce embrace.  
Elsa  _ had  _ been half expecting that reaction and so was able to brace and catch her sister and not be blown over onto her back, accepting the crashing tackle and feeling, as her own arms came around her sister just as tightly. And as their arms came around each other and the rest of the room faded to a dim sort of blur-

Home. This was … home.

Elsa had  _ never  _ been drunk before, far too concerned about what might happen with her powers if she lost control of herself to do more than ever sip at any alcohol. But she had to wonder if it might feel  _ something _ like this? Her sister's body all but wrapped around her, her head tucked in where it belonged on her shoulder, her scent, the familiar floral perfume from Corona she loved so much,  _ everything  _ just coming together to smother her in such a feeling of  _ …   
_ Elsa closed her eyes with a smile and set aside the rest of the world around them, pushing aside the crowd, the Kingdom; even Ahtohallan.  
She even set aside the way she could  _ feel  _ in her heart that Anna’s clinging was a little tighter than usual and the way she breathed, the way her fingers gripped her - almost like she was desperately clinging to her, afraid she wasn’t real…was very much like she had for days after the Great Thaw until she started to accept that Elsa was not going to lock her out behind a door ever again.  
She ignored it all for now and simply stood there. A rock for her sister to cling to as solid and as immovable as the very foundations of Ahtohallan itself.

The crowd however, clearly not giving a toss about royal protocol when it came to the two of them,  _ cheered  _ loudly as they crashed together. Claps, whistles and yells of support flooding the room with quite incredible volume and noise as the people of Arendelle gave voice to their own joy that the two of them were together once again with a thunderous round of applause.

“You … came?” Anna said in a tiny, soft voice only Elsa heard that caused her heart to clench for how utterly disbelieving and overwhelmed Anna sounded at the same in those two words. 

And that it was a  _ question  _ Elsa had answered _ ,  _ more than a statement of fact. 

“You’re really here?”

Elsa fought the urge to wince and instead simply tried to, for once in her life, be a good big sister as she squeezed her back tightly for a moment and shifted her head to whisper back into Anna’s ear to say what she had come all this way to say first and foremost.

“I love you Anna” she said the four words she had more than any others wanted -  _ needed - _ to say before saying or doing anything else. Trying to pour all of her heart into her words, desperate for Anna to understand and  _ believe  _ her. “Even when I’ve been the world's greatest and most selfish idiot, if you need me? I will  _ always  _ find my way home to you.”

There was a  _ tremor  _ through her sister at that and a brief hiccup that made her realize that her sister was closer than she thought to losing her poise and composure. And it probably wouldn't do for the new Queen to break down crying in front of everyone. But Elsa didn’t regret her first words to her sister being those ones; she had needed to say them more than she had needed to say anything in her life.  
Still, she had been lucky enough to have  _ her  _ breakdown today in the depths of Ahtohallan. Her sister did  _ not  _ deserve to be humiliated on her own coronation (like she had been when she lost control of herself) and gently she released her and backed away, Anna reluctantly letting her go and the two finding themselves face to face.

And seeing her sister's glorious face at close range as her eyes took in everything told her so very much..   
Anna was  _ barely _ holding back her emotions. She was clearly tired. So very tired...but there was still an iron strength in her, a blazing fire of spirit that was paradoxically undiminished and undaunted.

“My friends'' Elsa said as she turned away from her sister to face the crowd as the last of the applause finally faded off. “I am so very happy to have -just- made it here tonight for this great moment for Arendelle; the coronation of its greatest ruler in history!” she said powerfully and the crowd cheered and clapped once more as Anna stepped up next to her, the Queen shamelessly and casually reaching down to firmly take Elsa’s left hand in her right as Elsa kept talking, raising up her other hand in a plea to be heard. “And while I would love to stay and talk with you all - and do hope to catch up with every one of you in the days and weeks ahead” she continued, dropping in an unsubtle way the fact that she wasn’t simply flying in and out tonight - with her eyes flicking to the Count of Helden and his clique that she saw he did  _ not  _ miss in the way they stiffened ever so slightly at her message - “I would beg your selfish indulgence to steal our Queen away and retire with her for the night.”

There was another cheer - idly wondered if some of the men were too drunk to care and were just cheering along - but the round of applause and smiles suggested this was not only accepted, but very happily encouraged by their people and Elsa couldn’t help but feel a warmth in her heart at the people celebrating her bond with her sister. 

That they clearly loved Anna so much that even on this night, they would not deny her for one moment the chance to catch up with her sister…

“Thank you” Anna said from next to her as she stepped forward slightly, smiling to the crowd with genuine, real warmth that chased away all the tension and worry like the sun breaking through scattered clouds for a time as she reveled in her peoples adoration and showed her love for them in return with a smile that seemed to light up the room. “Thank you so much. All of you, please, by all means, stay until midnight and enjoy yourselves!” she commanded and there were yet more loud cheers - and Elsa couldn’t help but smile at the men in the back who were the loudest of all, raising their steins high with whistles and cheers at the fact that the wine and beer wouldn’t stop flowing for some time yet!   
And with that done, Anna gave a perfect …  _ Anna _ … curtsy to the crowd. Abrupt, almost impish and cute rather than regal and powerful … but oh so the younger sister the people  _ adored  _ and recognized at once with a loud cheer one last time as Elsa offered her own slightly more … graceful … curtsy before almost getting  _ yanked  _ to the side by Anna as she made a beeline for the door that Gerda had already opened for them to pass through, Elsa catching the gleam in the older woman's eye as she was swept past and out the door with the applause of their people chasing them along until it closed behind them - and Anna abandoned any royal dignity in favor of speed.

She did not let go of her hand as she hurried down the corridor from the Throne room to the grand spiral staircase behind it.

She did not let go of her hand as she all but dragged her up it as fast as her legs could carry her, coronation cape and all.

She did not let go as she dragged the portrait she had commissioned for her sister's first birthday after the Great Thaw, showing her family all together....and suddenly making her wonder where Kristoff, Olaf and Sven were?

Well, perhaps not  _ Sven _ , but-

A moment later Anna yanked her and they were through the doors to her younger sisters bedroom. She finally let go, whirling around and shutting her door behind her - and  _ locking  _ it, as if afraid she would escape?  
With that done, Anna turned to face her, panting very slightly from the sprinting as she just stood there, the two of them staring at each other. Finally alone. A moment Elsa had been both eagerly awaiting and dreading since leaving Ahtohallan...  
There was a slightly awkward silence for a moment between them - then suddenly Anna let go of her hand to race across her room to open a draw. Elsa followed her in curiosity as Anna pulled out …

Ohhhhh.

“I … they arrived a week after you left,” Anna said as she held up the tiny wrapped package, with a familiar wax stamp over the carefully wrapped paper. “I … kept them here, hoping you’d come back and … I promised that the very  _ first _ thing I would do if ….” she slowly lowered her hands, her face turning red as she looked away. “This is silly” she muttered sounding quietly embarrassed with herself and starting to turn away as if to shove them back into the draw-

In two quick steps Elsa was there and gently reached out to arrest her sisters hands and bring them back up. Silently, with delicate, deliberate moves, she worked the wax away from the paper gently until it came loose and she could pull the paper back, the  _ incredible  _ smell of the rich chocolate from Denmark filling the room as she inhaled it through her nose, closing her eyes for a second to let the rich, glorious smell fell her head before, with with a smile, she opened her eyes and selected a piece.

And consumed it.

She was unable to help but let out a satisfied and content noise moan as the rich sweet taste she had not encountered in some time flowed through her and she took her time savouring it before finally returning her gaze to her sister who still looked a little embarrassed … but with a tiny little smile on her face that said -and meant- everything. Holding her sisters gaze, Elsa silently picked up another piece of chocolate and let her powers flare through her fingertips, subtle patterns of hoar frost forming on the surface of this triangle and drawing a surprised ‘oh’ from Anna as she held it out, her sister clearly delighted that she was going to freeze it for her, because Anna had always preferred it frozen…

“I’d never miss the chance to share chocolate with you Anna” she said gently as she held it out for her sister to take. Which Anna did, nimbly plucking it from her fingers and shoving it into her mouth with alacrity, smiling as she crunched down the chocolate with a happy sound. Elsa took a step back then, reaching up to take off her crown … her  _ tiara  _ … and placed it on her sisters dresser before glancing around as she absently let her hair out of its ponytail, dissolving the clip with a thought as it swung free. “I’m going to get changed - oh, I’m borrowing your red night dress” she said as casually as she could, walking to Anna’s wardrobe and plucking the soft fabric out. It was cut quite a bit longer than most of the rest of Anna’s sleepwear and Elsa had borrowed it more than once when the two of them had had a sleepover in her sisters room and she couldn’t be bothered to walk all the way back to her own room.

It was also, conveniently, a statement to her sister that she was staying here tonight ...

“Oh - Oh! Right, of course” her sister replied after a moment, clearly surprised and then just as clearly quietly rejoicing that she was going to stay here with her as Elsa nodded and walked out. Anna hurried to shove the remainder of the chocolate into a draw before she started to fight with her formal clothes, making vague growling noises as she struggled with the clips that Elsa had to fight quite hard not to smirk at as she calmly entered the bathroom and gently closed the door behind her.

With the door closed she let the calm smile on her face fall away as she leaned back against the door, slumping slightly as she felt the tension and emotion rolling under her skin, reaching up to rub her neck.

So. That was the easy part of the night over. Now … things got hard.

* * *

“Kristoff! It’s not - mmmphhhh!” 

Elsa tilted her head as she silently opened the door to the bathroom and paused as she found that she and Anna were no longer alone. Her sister was, in fact, half undressed but - _thank_ _Odin_ \- she was not showing anything truly inappropriate, _yet_. She _was_ however pressed up against the wall by Kristoff who was quite fiercely kissing her and seemingly ignoring Anna’s -rather half hearted she noted- attempts to get a word in.

“It’s just-”

More frantic kissing.

“Right now-”

_ More _ frantic kissing.

“I have-”

Even  _ more  _ frantic kissing.

Kristoff was clearly not listening to Anna’s gasped words when she kept coming up for air - but in a dispassionate way, she could hardly blame him alone here. Anna was clinging onto him with what looked like a grip of steel with her fist in his hair and even had one leg up and wrapped around his hip in an impressively _flexible_ way as she kissed him back just as passionately.

Elsa felt a flush come to her face as she found herself staring at the two of them like some kind of voyeur, but she found some pride in the fact that she didn’t react more than that - something she put down to her time in the Enchanted Forest. She had only lived with the Nothuldrans for a short time, but it had been  _ enough  _ to perhaps start to smooth out some of her more rigid corners over public displays of affection. In a close knit tribe where everyone lived in goahti’s, she had slowly come to understand that the tribe was by necessity, rather less …  _ concerned _ about such things. Accepting affection as a natural thing to be celebrated, not hidden.

Within  _ certain  _ lines of course. 

Still, standing silently and watching as her sister and fiance got increasingly heated inside their bedroom was not exactly something acceptable to either of her homes as her own face flushed slightly, so....

So she had to fight to maintain a straight face as she coughed firmly, causing Kristoffs head to  _ snap  _ around to look at her before he all but dropped her sister -who barely got her shaky legs under her- as he jumped back faster than she had seen anyone move with an expression of horror and shock on his face.

It was quite charming, she thought, in an entirely  _ far  _ too amusing kind of way. 

_ And people said I didn’t have a sense of humor... _

“Uh - yeah, um, Elsa’s here!” Anna explained into the silence through some slightly heavy breathing as she adjusted the final layers of her coronation dress that Kristoff had (thankfully!) not been able to quite remove as yet, her expression slightly sheepish … but also in that Anna way, just more than a little mischievous. The brat.

“I … I see, I mean, um, hi?” the man managed to get out, his face red (and she didn’t think that was entirely from his embarrassment) and his voice at a much higher pitch than usual.

“Hello Kristoff” she greeted him with a deliberately slight and formal incline of her head, suppressing her own mirth with ease as Anna nonchalantly adjusted her underclothes straps, slipping away towards the screen close by. “Perhaps we might give my sister the room to change?” she suggested, moving to the door  _ quite  _ deliberately. 

“Oh - yes, of course” he muttered as he glanced for Anna - only to find that she had already vanished and several items of clothing haphazardly started to appear tossed up onto the screen - the man frozen to the spot for a moment as he realized her sister was disrobing only meters away before he snapped his head back around and rapidly walked for the door, Elsa following him out and closing it behind them.  
In the corridor outside the two of them stood for a moment, Elsa staring at him in as neutral and placid an expression as she could manage as he fidgeted, clearly terrified at the situation he had found himself in.

She let him stew for about five seconds. 

“So, you and my sister are…” she let her voice trail off in a deliberately vague way as his face flushed even more.

“Just we - I mean, we’re not, well we -”

“Kritsoff, I hope you’ll understand my feelings on this. Anna is the  _ Queen _ of Arendelle now” Elsa explained calmly as Kristoff seemed to try to melt into a puddle where he was standing.

“Of course, I mean I-”

“And that as a result I expect you to  _ behave _ yourself in public with her with all the decorum she, as  _ Queen _ , demands.”

“Absolutely, I mean, I just-”

“And that I would equally hope that the two of you, when in private, will always conduct yourselves with all the expected passion and joy of a young couple in love with each other expressing that love” she said with a deliberately stern look on her face she had to fight to keep in place.

“I promise, I  _ promise  _ that I … we… wait…” Kristoffs desperate, almost disjointed attempts to apologise trailed to a halt as her words caught up with him. “Uh … I’m sorry, what-”

She couldn’t help it and with a bit of a snort and snicker of a laugh she let her stern expression melt into something rather more warm as she stepped up to the poor man and did something she had never done to him before, even in all these years of knowing him.

She hugged him.

She wondered, not for the first time this evening,  _ why  _ she had always been so hesitant to do this with people she was close to. Olaf had kept telling her for years that a hug could solve so many problems and she had just smiled in an indulgent sort of way, ignoring how wise he could be … at times.

It probably helped considerably that Kristoff had  _ clearly  _ had a shower today.

She still felt him become as stiff as an ice sculpture under her as she silently held him before a few seconds later, awkwardly at first, his arms came back down to return it and as she stood there silently holding him, he seemed to -very- slowly relax into the embrace and simply accept it.

“Thank you” she said into his chest finally. Softly, but loud enough for him to hear.

“For … what?” he asked, clearly more than a little off balance and confused as she let go and stepped back, the other awkwardly scratching his head.  
She could only smile at him, feeling emotions pooling in her as she regarded her future brother in law and realized how, under his occasionally gruff exterior, just how much of a  _ good man  _ he was. 

He was actually  _ confused  _ as to what she was thanking him for?  
Then she would tell him.

“For being  _ you  _ Kristoff” she explained simply, feeling her hands fidgeting with each other as she met his gaze squarely. “For being the most selfless, incredibly caring and utterly  _ devoted _ man I have ever known in my life. For standing by Anna through thick and thin - even when she never knew you were there. For always,  _ always,  _ looking to what you can do for her before anything or anyone else,  _ including _ yourself. Without hesitation, without even a second thought as you throw yourself over whatever obstacles might be in her path - even when you don’t know  _ how  _ to help, you try to find a way” she paused for a second as she had to fight her emotions before setting herself and saying the words that still twisted like a knife in her heart. “Kristoff … I thank you more than anything else, for loving my sister and being so utterly worthy of the love she shows you … when  _ I _ have failed to meet that mark far too many times recently.”

Kristoff stared at her with an expression she could best describe as stunned shock for a moment and she couldn’t meet his gaze, glancing off to the side as the silence stretched out painfully. Before Kristoff rallied and took a deep breath - and then did something very  _ very  _ few people ever had dared to.

He reached down and took his hands into her own.

It was like a jolt of energy into her being. Elsa had always been very skittish about letting people touch her hands even after she had come to terms with her gifts. The old ingrained habits of her fears ran deep in her being despite everything and her sisters best efforts. She generally neither offered them for people to touch, not accepted invitations from people to take their own. Only Anna generally dared to take her hands in her own and Kristoffs huge, worn and strong hands were something … else. And the firm yet gentle grip and his somewhat abashed yet earnest expression  _ grounded  _ her.

“I … guess Grand Pabby found a way to get my message to you?” he asked carefully looking almost skittish. “Please don’t think I’d ever go behind Anna’s back like that without-”

“Kristoff” she silenced him with a shake of his head. “You did the right thing - and you did it out of love” she assured him, squeezing his hands and he released them as they edged slightly back to a more comfortable distance for the two of them. “I only wish you had told me sooner what a  _ mess  _ I had made of things until it became necessary for you, Pabbie  _ and  _ Ahtohallan to all pull me aside and tell me how bad things had gotten. What after Ahtohallan called me this morning and-”

“Oh no, not that damn voice again?!” he asked in a somewhat chagrined expression and Elsa laughed very lightly and shook her head, amused despite herself. ‘That damn voice’ indeed...

“No, not that voice” she assured him. “Ahtohallan is part of me and I am a part of it. It’s call was more subtle now - yet even more clear. I didn’t know _why_ it wanted me at first, but I came and found it presenting me with more and more memories of Anna as I entered. Of all the times I had failed to live up to the mark as her sister. Of the times I had promised her to stand with her, or do things together or just outright promised to treat her as an equal ... then broke that promise. The many ...many... times” she said, flinching back and pacing a little. “Then it showed me … well, it showed me recent memories from Anna” she admitted to him, suddenly a little nervous.  
  
“...What memories?” Kristoff asked carefully with a tilt of her head and she set herself and looked him square in the eye, wondering how he would take what she had suddenly realized could seem like an _incredible_ violation of his privacy. But she set herself and told him the truth, her tone utterly matter of fact.

“Memories of Anna, trying on her coronation dress and admitting between her tears how utterly overwhelmed she was with the mess I had dumped on her” she said, holding his gaze levely. “Memories showing me how badly I had failed to even  _ begin  _ to consider my sisters feelings, wishes and desires before I dropped the Crown on her head and ran away without even giving her the compassion of checking in in person since then” she said, her tone cracking a little as she clenched her hands into fists. “Memories of Anna thinking that I had chosen my  _ magic  _ over  _ her _ ” she added, unable to keep the sharp stab of pain such a horrific thought brought to her out of her voice and she took a second with her eyes closed, biting her lip to try and control herself before looking back up and squarely into Kristoff's eyes once again, her expression softening as she saw him standing there. 

The kind, honest and just plain  _ decent  _ man. 

“But there were other memories too Kristoff” she continued, her tone changing as she took a step towards him. “Memories of a man who, well before dawn on  _ this _ very day, snuck out to the Valley of the Living Rock to ask Grand Pabby to find a way to get a message to me so he could get back to her before she realized he was gone. Memories of a man who was there for Anna every single moment she needed someone. Memories of a man who despite finding this society and place so  _ strange  _ and  _ different  _ and  _ difficult  _ and feeling out of place did everything he could to fit in, for her” she said, knowing just how hard Kristoff had thrown himself into being a part of a world so alien to him after his life alone as a humble ice harvester and not for the first time, feeling humbled by how much he loved his sister. 

Even now as he couldn’t meet her gaze, blushing and clearly working up the strength to mumble some kind of objections to her statements because he was almost allergic to being praised, Elsa took another step closer, reflecting on the incredible journey this man had made with them and realizing she owed him an apology that was long outstanding.

“And I owe you an apology too Kristoff” she said.

“Fo…” he had to pause to clear his throat, trying to compose himself. “For what?”

“In Northuldra” she clarified with a downward twitch of her lips as she crossed her arms, then forced herself to uncross them. “When I ran off after the voice in the middle of the night. I all but  _ forced  _ Anna to leave you behind to keep up with me. That was … not just incredibly rude and selfish - especially given what you had just left to do” she added and off his horrified look offered him a wry smile. “Yes, Ryder told me about your proposal to Yelena” she said and he groaned and slapped a hand on his face and Elsa had to fight a smile at that. “But leaving you behind like that? Kristoff I-”

“Elsa, the entire trip to the enchanted forest? It was  _ your  _ journey.  _ You  _ were the one who the spirits called, not me, not Anna. If we couldn’t keep up? That’s on us, not you. I have  _ some  _ idea, having lived around Trolls my life, just how powerful the call of magic can be. In fact I’m willing to bet that you didn’t even wait for Anna but just walked off because you were  _ that  _ focused on the call as it got closer and closer to you?”

Elsa glanced away, her silence a confession as loud as words.

“So, you know, uh, don’t worry about it” he said with a mild shrug, looking almost embarrassed before he quickly moved to change the subject. “So um, I suppose that means Pabbie was able to get a message to you?”

She accepted the subject change with grace, but mentally made a note to revisit this at some point. 

“After he finished talking to you” she said, controlling her voice, “Grand Pabbie looked at  _ me,  _ in the memory I was watching of your conversation with him. And then he  _ spoke  _ to me! Then he stepped  _ through  _ the memory into Ahtohallan itself! I have no idea how he managed it, he simply said it was ‘Maaaggiccc’ when I asked” she said mimicking the Trolls words and gestures and earning a look of long suffering amusement from Kristoff.

“Yes he can be like that at times whenever anyone tries to ask him how he did something” Kristoff said with a sympathetic roll of his eyes.

“I’m sure” she smiled as her face went a little distant. “But I’m grateful you pointed him my way Kristoff, he was able to clear up some things …  _ many  _ things” she corrected herself. “The most important of which being who the Fifth Spirit is.”

“But …  _ you’re  _ the Fifth Spirit” he pointed out with a cocked eyebrow and Elsa shrugged slightly, mildly embarrassed.

“Only half of it. Anna was  _ supposed  _ to have been with me when I arrived at Ahtohallan because  _ we  _ are the Fifth Spirit Kristoff. Both of us.  _ Together _ . Despite how often I kept trying to leave her behind - and my eventual sending her away by force. She’s just as much spirit as I am because when I said a bridge has two sides and mother had two daughters, I was giving words to something I felt in my soul but I  _ completely  _ misunderstood. I Interpreted it to my own advantage to provide a justification to run away from Arendelle and my responsibilities. But in reality, I was missing the obvious truth that any bridge may have two sides-”

“-But it’s still one bridge!” he jumped in with a look of sudden excitement on his face before he again looked abashed at interrupting her but as he opened his mouth to apologise she waved him off with a smile. Marvling -and not for the first time this day- at the surprising depths of insight this man had to him. 

“It is still one bridge,” Elsa agreed. “And thus, the Fifth Spirit as it stands is … incomplete I suppose is the best way to say it. And that must be corrected. I will take Anna with me to Ahtohallan to claim her birthright. But …” she trailed off, shaking her head slightly, “Ahtohallan can wait - I can  _ feel  _ that it can wait now, as long as needed. A glacier is ever so patient and with the dam destroyed and mist lifted the immediate issues have been resolved.  _ Right now _ , Anna needs me  _ here _ .” 

Kristoff perked up suddenly, an expression almost edged in desperately naked hope directed at her that was more intense than any look the normally rather bashful man had ever directed at her.

“You’re here to help her?” he asked her softly, his expression almost painfully hopeful. “You’re going to  _ stay?  _ Stay and help Anna settle onto the Throne?”

“For as long as I’m needed - now and in the future” she confirmed with all the surety she could muster. “Yes Kristoff, I’m here to help.”

She was not entirely prepared for the response from him as he lunged forward and hugged her so tightly he  _ lifted  _ her off her feet and Elsa could only gasp out a startled laugh at his reaction. An easy, loving laugh as he twirled her around in the air before she told him to put her down, the great big oaf.

Strange how  _ addictive  _ hugging people could be…

* * *

_ “Come in Elsa!” _

Elsa opened the door, smiling as she stepped back inside her sisters room - and stepped back in time. Anna had managed to get changed out of her coronation dress, that was now rather haphazardly flung over the screen she had changed behind - and she made a mental note to have a talk to her about properly putting away her very expensive clothes later. She was now in the green nightgown she liked - the same one she had worn on  _ that  _ night, the last night they had been in this castle together, with her hair released to a much more casual look. 

For a second it was almost as if the last few months hadn’t happened … but she pushed past those thoughts and rallied her courage.   
Because they  _ had  _ happened.   
And if she had learned anything on this exhausting day that was  _ still  _ not yet over, it was that you could  _ not  _ live in the past. 

Not even in Ahtohallan.

“So, um, about Kristoff... ” Anna started to say, fiddling with her sleeves and Elsa actually snorted in an amused way, shaking her head as she made her way over to Anna who was sitting on the end of her bed. 

“Don’t apologise for being in love Anna” she said before offering her sister a warm smile as she sat down next to her. “And whatever the two of you do in the privacy of your own bedroom is  _ entirely  _ up to the two of you ... just so long as I don’t necessarily have to be in the room to  _ watch  _ him ravish you in the future.”  
Anna’s eyes went wide, her face flushing at her sister being so … direct, before her expression swiftly turned almost coy as she directed a smirk at her. 

“Let's get one thing straight Elsa; I’m the Queen.  _ I  _ ravish  _ him” _ .

“That’s not how it looked from where I was standing” Elsa observed in a deadpan voice … and a second later the two of them burst out laughing together and just like that it was just the two sisters gossiping together once again.

Once they had calmed down, Anna reached out with her right hand to take her left into a gentle grip. 

“I'm so, so glad you're here” she said and there was a lot of emotion in her voice. “I’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you” Elsa said, reaching out to pull Anna more into a hug, her sister all but melting against her with a content sort of sigh. “I’m sorry for being so late today.”

“You’re here. That’s  _ all  _ that matters to me” she said once again with such utter sincerity in her voice Elsa couldn’t help but stiffen slightly, which was noticed unsurprisingly quickly by Anna, causing her to release the hug and shuffle back slightly. Looking at her in the eyes with that incredibly piercing and loving gaze she  _ always  _ directed at her when she thought she was having a problem.   
Ignoring and kicking her own problems out of the way.

“What’s wrong?” 

“ _ That’s _ what’s wrong” Elsa said softly before she thought about it, cringing at how it must have sounded as Anna’s face shifted to one that was confused, worried and perhaps even a little hurt. Elsa took a second to close her eyes and take a deep breath in and out before she gave in to her reflexive need to apologize to her sister.   
It was time.   
No more delays. Just as Anna had once ripped the bandage off her wounds to let them truly start to heal, she needed to break through her sister's implacable need to bury her own problems deep to keep up the illusion that she was perfectly fine when she needed, truly needed, her big sister to tell her it was okay to  _ not  _ be okay.

“Anna” she started after a time, opening her eyes to regard her sister with the most serious expression she could manage. “I need to talk about two things. Things about me, my recent failures - and especially my recent failures around how I’ve treated  _ you _ ”.  
Perhaps predictably, Anna’s face sharply deepened into a reflexive denial and her back straightened in the way it  _ always _ did whenever she was about to berate her big sister for thinking bad things about herself - but for once, Elsa was ready.  
She reached out and gently cupped her sister's face from the sides with both hands, brushing her cheek with her thumbs and looking into her eyes and  _ willing  _ her to ‘hear’ her. The sudden and almost unprecedented invasion of Anna’s space stopped her sister’s objection in its tracks as her eyes widened and Elsa mercilessly pushed her advantage.  
“I love you Anna. And you’ve always been so utterly determined to protect me -  _ even from myself  _ \- but I’m asking you to just let me speak. I promise I will give you all the time in the world when I’m done to say whatever  _ you _ want to say, but I need you to not just hear, but  _ listen _ to what  _ I _ have to say first” she pleaded. Trying to pour her  _ need  _ into her voice, her gaze, her  _ everything  _ into those eyes that seemed to shift between green and blue depending on her mood for long,  _ long  _ moments without any reaction until she gently let go of her sisters face and slowly let her hands fall away uncertainty-

Only for them to arrest their fall as Anna’s hands caught them. Gently taking a hold of them. Anna ‘feeling’ slightly unsure, uncertain, but …

“Alright” her sister said, just a tad grudgingly, yet with a quiet agreement; a  _ promise  _ made after she exhaled. “I will listen and hear you out and not say anything.  _ But _ “ she added sharply a second later with almost amusingly narrowed eyes before she could reply, letting go of her hands and bringing a finger up at close range in front of her, pointed in warning. “I formally reserve the right to  _ yell at you _ for being an idiot afterwards. If necessary. Which it probably will be. Because that’s where this is going.”

She didn’t know if she should be mildly irritated or genuinely touched by her sister's statement so she settled for nodding once and then standing, moving away to get a little distance before turning around to face her and …

The moment she had been working towards all day had arrived … and her mind was suddenly entirely blank. 

Well ... this was awkward.

“I almost don’t know where to begin” she admitted nervously as the silence stretched, glancing down at her hands and frowning in slight annoyance to find she had been starting to wring them again,  _ forcing  _ herself to clasp them in front of her and absently fiddling with her burgundy nightgown a little.

“I always think the beginning is a good place” Anna suggested with a bit of an amused smile and Elsa shot her a  _ look _ before Anna realized what she had done. 

“Sorry!” she said with a wince and reached up to mine zipping her lips shut and Elsa couldn’t help but roll her eyes - in an endearing way- at the very  _ Anna  _ gesture before reconsidering her words for a moment and deciding that perhaps there  _ was  _ something here.

“The beginning” she mussed before giving a slow nod. “For me, everything started on the Nineteenth of December twenty one years ago” Elsa said and Anna tilted her head in recognition - but held her tongue as Elsa turned away from her now, walking to her sisters window to gaze across at the distant lights of Arendelle, her thoughts diving deep into the fuzzy and deepest parts of her memories. “I remember Father coming to get me from where I was playing somewhere in the castle and taking me into the nursery. Mother was in there. Sitting in that old rocking chair holding a bundle. They said some things to me but I can’t remember anything except for two words. ‘Anna’. And ‘Sister'”.

Anna said nothing but Elsa could  _ feel  _ her sisters gaze on her back as she closed her eyes and took herself back fully to that moment. 

“Mother invited me up to sit with her in the chair and let me, well,  _ sort of _ , hold this incredible tiny little person” she continued with her eyes closed, a small smile on her face. “Who was sleeping and had the most shockingly bright hair and the most impossibly  _ tiny _ fingernails on her hands” she said as she turned around and opened her eyes … and was struck again by the fact that Anna was no longer that baby. 

“On that day, that first time I looked down at your sleeping little face … something stamped itself on my soul Anna. That before anything else, my purpose in life was to protect you. To look out for you. To watch over you, to love you. I’ve  _ tried _ to do that all my life, even if…” she couldn’t help but look down at the floor for a second as she strode back slowly, the old shame pulsing up under her before she let it pass through her and beyond her. “Well, we both know where my desire to keep you safe led me after the  _ accident _ ” she tactly left it at that with a bit of a wry smile, glancing up to find Anna offering her back a  _ look  _ that was a conversation in of itself as she walked back from the window, hugging herself tightly, still looking everywhere but her sister with that mildly scolding expression.

“But it all ended up with  _ you  _ sacrificing your life to protect  _ me”  _ Elsa said before Anna started to twitch, probably thinking she was about to go over old ground again and Elsa waved her off absently. “And yes, I know, forgiven. But the  _ point  _ is that the events of my Coronation were a wakeup call. A warning to me about how close I had come to losing you forever due to my stupidity, short sightedness and above all, my selfishness. And so I swore on that day to never take you or your love or your sacrifices for me for granted.  _ Never again.  _ And yet when the first  _ real  _ test of those promises came …”

She took a deep breath, steeled herself and focused on her sister with all the determination she could summon.   
“I failed to keep that promise. I failed you Anna. I failed Arendelle. I failed our parents. And I failed  _ myself _ . When I abdicated and put you in charge of Arendelle, I  _ knew  _ you would be a far better and greater Queen for our people...'' she said and then reached down and laid a finger firmly quite on her sister's mouth, correctly anticipating she was about to protest that statement, staring Anna down silently until she (grudgingly) subsided.

But there was something behind her reflexive denial she saw in an instant before Anna smothered it behind trying to look adorable by going cross eyed at her finger. 

Elsa forced a smile as the mask her sister wore slammed back into place and carried on as if she hadn’t seen anything.

“But regardless of the fact that you  _ will  _ be the greatest Queen in the history of Arendelle'' Elsa re-emphasised -and yes, again there was that tiny twitch that no-one perhaps other than she would have seen- “ _ that _ in no way justified my abdication a month ago. I could have abdicated the crown even before my disaster of coronation in your favor, but I  _ didn’t _ . Despite my terror, my fears and the far more justifiable reason of my uncontrolled powers, I still took the oath and accepted the crown and all it meant. And do you know why?”

Anna shook her head slightly, an air of intense curiosity about her as she was offered a glimpse into a part of her sister that Elsa had never shared with her.

“Because I  _ never  _ wanted to burden you with it” she said and Elsa moved to sit next to her sister on the bed, leaving perhaps slightly more of a gap than she usually would have as she started to explain. 

“Father made it very clear to me as the Heir  _ exactly  _ what would be expected of the Queen of Arendelle and the older I got, the more and more I became convinced I had to protect you from ever facing that fate. No matter how terrified I was about being ‘found out’ as a ‘witch’, I never second guessed myself on that until  _ that  _ night when I ran up the North Mountain. But after the Great Thaw when I was finally able to put my fears to the side and genuinely try to rule as  _ me _ , with you by my side ... I found myself, to my surprise, for the first time in forever, to be content. I still didn’t have all the answers about who I was and why I had the powers I did, but it just didn’t seem to matter. I think I was finally starting to understand what Father had always taught me; that the ruler of Arendelle was also its greatest servant and that with my service I was repaying my people for the incredible faith they had put in me after the, ah ...  _ problematic”  _ she fished for a word, “start to my reign. That I was showing my love for  _ you  _ by letting you find your own way in life, helping me out when you wanted to and serving our people more directly and with such passion! The Peoples Princess! Watching as you so  _ easily  _ did things that I found impossible. I increasingly became convinced in my heart that you would be a far better Queen than I - but I had made my oaths and I stuck to them.”

And with that said, Elsa felt her face twitch into a somewhat more unhappy expression.

“And then in one singular moment I  _ threw away  _ everything. I shoved the crown onto your head without thinking twice or asking  _ once,  _ as if it was suddenly a mere annoying burden to be disposed of” she admitted, her voice wavering slightly as she finally admitted the awesome impact of her unthinking and casual choice to the person it had impacted most of all. “There was neither the need, nor the justification for me to make that decision with such haste Anna, let alone for me to _ decree  _ it to you like I did without your input - or consent! But I did it anyway … and I realized it's exactly what I’ve been doing all along to you ever since we opened the gates. Without even realising it until Ahtohallan called me forth and  _ forced  _ me to witness the end results of my actions in betraying you.”

“You  _ never  _ betrayed-” Anna finally broke her silence in such a r _ eflexive _ denial that Elsa felt her head snap around and transfix her sister almost without thinking. Raw emotions she  _ never  _ let out piercing Anna with such a  _ look  _ that her sister for once, was stopped dead in her tracks in the attempt to forgive her without  _ thinking  _ about what she was doing. Again.

“Oh?” she said and there was a tone in her voice that made Anna shiver as Elsa tilted her head to regard her with a thin smile, her gaze almost a stranger…

“When I abdicated, my dear sister, I  _ betrayed _ you. In  _ how  _ I abdicated, I compounded it. I  _ should  _ have returned to Arendelle with that decision. I  _ should  _ have had the courage to stand before and explain it to the council, the nobility and the country before working with you to make  _ absolutely sure  _ you were ready to take the Throne at the appropriate time. Supporting you. Training you. Guiding you on your path just like our parents did for me until you were ready to lead as I was bound by my oath to do, until you were ready and  _ told  _ me you were ready. All of this even presuming  _ that you wanted the Throne and accepted it from me  _ for that matter! _ Did _ I  _ do _ that Anna?” she didn’t quite angrily  _ demand  _ of her sister who flinched a small amount back from her causing Elsa to look away in shame, shaking her head and letting the emotions drain - even as she hoped Anna knew she was angry at  _ herself,  _ not her sister...

“No, I didn’t” she didn’t quite bite out quietly. “Instead, I left you to go back to Arendelle and figure _everything_ out for yourself while I ran off to Ahtohallan. Leaving you to pick up the pieces I’d left of the Government in the aftermath of an enormous crisis and to do so entirely _alone”_ and the slight emphasis she placed on that word earned a genuine visible flinch from her younger sister as if she had touched a raw nerve, Anna shifting to look now at the floor - and _that_ response caused something to start to break in Elsa in turn.

“All the time on our journey” she said after a moment to gather her thoughts and now her voice was low as she replayed those days in her mind, also looking at the floor. “You kept asking me for just one thing Anna. For only one thing. To keep the gates open. To let you in. To be my partner. My _equal._ To make decisions _together_ as we faced whatever it is we would find _together._ All that time, I kept promising to do so. And yet every time a crisis point came up” she said, taking in a shuddering breath as she forced herself to confess the truth. “I _betrayed_ that promise. I undeniably betrayed _you_ and your love for me by taking your forgiveness of me for _granted_ … and that culminated in my thrusting you onto my Throne to take my place so I could run off and abandon everything I had sworn without feeling bad about it” she confessed as she opened her eyes again to find Anna staring at her, powerful emotions under the skin trying to rip through her sister's increasingly thin mask...

It just needed one more push … as much as it was tearing her up inside to do this to her...

“I _pushed_ you there. I _forced_ you to shoulder the burdens and duties I had taken up of my own free will. Oh I did so in the belief - the certintity” she emphasised, the _one_ thing in this mess she was unshakably sure about, “ that you _will_ be the greatest ruler in Arendelle's history. And that is not something I’m saying simply to make myself feel better Anna; I have _always_ known you would be a better Queen because you have the _heart_ of a ruler. A ruler who loves her people, loves her country and will do whatever she can to make their lives better while also always doing. What. Is _Right”_ she punctuated the words with her fingers against the wood of her sister's bed frame. “ _Anyone_ can learn laws. Any fool can read regulations or treaties or have counselors to sit by them and do it. I could recite trade figures in my _sleep_ having spent years locked in my room memorizing them, but that didn’t make me a _leader._ That just made me a … a functionary. It took me years to learn to trust my heart after the Great Thaw … and for the longest time - and even now - I can admit I trusted and listened to _your_ heart to guide _mine_.”

“Elsa…” Anna tried to break in, her voice thick with emotion but Elsa pressed on, blinking the tears away as she swallowed and pressed to the point that was simultaneously both the lowest  _ and  _ greatest moment thus far in her sister's life.

“Your coronation, your _real_ coronation” she sniffed, fighting back the tears, “was back in Northuldra at the bottom of a cave. I was dead, Olaf died in your arms and with my last act, I laid upon you an impossible burden. Even _one_ of those things would have been enough to bring a strong person to their knees and keep them there for the rest of their life. If I had lost _you_ after being pushed away? Anna, I’d probably have locked myself back in my room and never come out again. But _you?_ ” she asked, shaking her head once again as the harsh look on her face melted at once into sheer awe...

In its own way, what her sister had accomplished from that starting point was even more profound when she had turned back death itself out on the Fjord that day.

“You _, Queen_ Anna'' she said, the most _profound_ respect in her voice as she gazed upon her sister like she was the most incredible and amazing person in the world -because she _was-_ “found the strength to stand back up. To take a step forward. And then one more step. And then another. You clawed your way up out of the darkness carrying this weight on your shoulders with nothing but the sheer strength inside _you_. _Not_ for me, _not_ for our parents, _not_ for anyone else but _you. By yourself without anyone else to help you,_ you climbed towards and reached the light despite everything _”_ she said as she reached out and gently placed a finger against her sister's chest, over her incredible, _incomparable_ heart, earning an intake of breath from the other woman. Anna’s eyes swirling with raw emotions as she continued to sit there silently, trembling slightly as Elsa then expanded and laid her palm gently against her sisters beating heart. Marveling at its implacable, _invincible_ beating and once again drawing - _pulling-_ strength from it into herself to fortify her will to push on. “In that last second I had in the depths of Ahtohallan, sending you the message Anna? The very last thought I had before everything went dark was … well, that it was going to be okay. That even though I had failed, even though I was about to die, because I had gotten the message to _you?_ That our grandfather's crimes were going to be made good. Because...” she said, fighting the emotions that were about to spill over. “Because I love you, but I also _believe_ in you Anna. More than anyone or anything-”

And that was apparently the limit because with a warbling lower lip Anna lurched forward and  _ flung  _ her arms around her, buried her face into her shoulder and started to silently cry. Elsas own arms had come up without any thought to hold her as she also cried softly. 

“I...I-” Anna started to try to get out in a shaken voice but Elsa hushed her.

“It’s okay. It’s Sunshine” she said softly into her ear. “Just let it all out, just _ let it go _ ” she whispered and Anna seemed to slump into her and started to sob softly, leaving Elsa feeling oddly ripped in half as her sister shuddered in her embrace, stroking her back.

Half of her felt satisfied that she had finally managed to break through Anna’s facade and force her to confront her true state that  _ she  _ had left her in … and half feeling more wretched and horrible than she had ever felt in her life for  _ doing this to her baby sister.  _

Even more so because Anna had done absolutely, positively  _ nothing  _ to be crying over.

But for now, Elsa just kept her arms around her and let her let it out. Being the best rock she could be until finally Anna’s shuddering subsided as minutes passed to her indifference, the log burning in her fireplace slowly diminishing as Elsa watched the fires dance, wondering idly what little Bruni was doing right now... 

In time her sisters breathing steadied as she regained her composure before finally pulling away from her to regard her with a look of such naked vulnerability it struck Elsa numb. 

“I’m so sorry” Anna finally said softly. “For everything.”

“ _ Anna _ ” she softly whispered, reaching out to ever so gently trace and wipe away the tears that had run down her sister's face, a tiny hint of frustration leaking into her feelings at her sister apologising to her! “You have nothing to apologise for Anna. Not. One. Thing” she said, pouring everything she could into her voice, her bearing, her vey  _ self  _ to make it clear with each touch but Anna shuddered a breath and shook her head.

“I thought … I thought you had ...”

“Chosen my magic over you?” Elsa forced out the words with great difficulty and now mortification swirled in her sister's face before she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled away, turning away in shame that stabbed Elsa in her much abused heart as, her sister all but confirmed just how much damage  _ she _ had done to her with her wretched decisions.

“Anna, honey, don’t.  _ Please  _ don’t hide from me” she begged but Anna just sat there with her back to her, slumped, leaving Elsa at a loss for what she was supposed to do before biting her lip and trying to reason with her. 

“You had every right to think that was what I had done and absolutely  _ no  _ reason to feel any guilt for it. Because … let us be honest here sister; i _ t’s exactly what I did _ ” she admitted” she said with her voice cracking. “And in that act, I moved beyond your forgiveness-”

_ “No.” _

The voice was small. So small and yet…Elsa shivered as she felt  _ something  _ behind it. Something …  _ powerful _ .

Anna turned back to face her. Her sister’s tear streaked face, puffy eyes and mussed hair should have made her look like a mess … but the look she was directing her way… and the almost intense expression that was studying her, never breaking eye contact, she reached up to brush away her tears, sniffing a couple of times as the storm of emotion dissipated to nothing as she visible swallowed and seemed to set herself.

“No, you didn't,” Anna said again and even before Elsa started to open her mouth to object, a finger suddenly appeared lightly touching her lip … yet even that tiny touch somehow felt like it held power of an Earth Giant over her, sending a jolt into her core from the lightest touch. “Please … can  _ I _ speak now?”

Elsa could only swallow, then nod her head slowly. 

Reluctantly. As some irrational part of her felt almost  _ threatened  _ by the fact that her sister was now going to try and convince her (wrongly) that  _ she  _ was wrong-

“Elsa, I love you.” she said first, her eyes locked on hers and those four words rang with such earnest sincerity...

Even after everything she had confessed.

“It’s been … hard” Anna admitted and her body  _ shifted  _ at that admission, as if she was finally letting an enormous weight fall off her shoulders. “I can’t and I won’t lie to you. I’ve felt I’ve been in over my head …  _ a lot ...  _ since I came home. Missing you so much, so much it  _ hurts _ . At night when I went to bed I kept thinking that I was the wrong person for the job and that I was going to be such a … a  _ betrayal _ of your trust-”

“You could  _ never-”  _ Elsa started to object in a sudden surge of outrage but that dainty finger instantly returned to her lips. Firmer. 

And with that, she was silenced.

Anna held her gaze patiently until eventually Elsa shuddered out a breath and her emotion to give her sister a nod of apology.

_ “But” _ Anna continued then, her tone entirely self-assured as she raised her chin. “ _ You’re _ not being honest with me - and more importantly, not being honest with  _ yourself _ . Everything you just said? In the end, it’s just you admitting that you didn’t think things through. That’s all” Anna said, her tone ever so gentle. “And take it from an expert on not thinking things through;  _ it happens  _ to all of us _ ” _ Anna added wrly. “I mean, a part of me is almost relieved at the fact that you  _ finally  _ did something on impulse! Makes  _ me  _ feel I don’t have to be utterly _ perfect _ on the throne and get everything right all the time!”

“I … but …” she tried to rally her thoughts as her mind ran in circles, wondering when her confession had gone so off the rails and how this was happening. “Anna, that’s not-”

“Oh?” Anna asked, and there was a gleam in her sister’s eyes now and suddenly Elsa felt almost naked under that look. That piercing gaze. Her sister  _ knew  _ she was off balance and was moving in for the kill now. She was off balance; Anna had gone from burying herself in her shoulder and refusing to come out to suddenly making her feel like she was ten years old again being dressed down by Father, seemingly in between blinks-

“Did you  _ deliberately  _ make the choice to run away knowing I would find it hard to take up your duties, without any intention of providing any help to me?”

_ “Of course not _ , but-”

“And did you have any doubts, at all, in your mind, that you felt I would be up for the job and be able to do it at least as well as you when you abdicated?”

“I just said that I  _ didn’t _ , but that isn’t the-”

“Annnnnd” Anna calmly overran her protest, her bearing becoming almost painfully intent. “Did you come here today to do  _ whatever  _ it would take to make everything right, however you could?”

There was only one thing she could say to that. Only one answer she could give.

“Yes” she admitted.

There was silence for a long long moment as Anna regarded her with an almost alien expression on her face.

“Even...” she said and finally there was an undercurrent of something in her voice that made Elsa tense up slightly as she dropped her voice to an uncertain murmur. “Even if it meant me abdicating the throne  _ back  _ to you?”

Elsa swallowed as the question was asked, the question she had been half expecting and, indeed, half  _ dreading  _ Anna to ask her. 

It would be an absolute headache for Arendelle and the Government, she knew that all too well. Not an insurmountable one, but it would present the most ugly image of instability for things to swing back and forth between her and her sister like this. She would be able to eventually overcome it, she was sure, but it would be  _ incredibly  _ hard and require an inordinate amount of work to do so. Not to mention put her duties as the Fifth Spirit at risk. She might have been able to balance them if she had never abdicated in the first place, but any attempt to excuse herself from the Capital  _ now  _ as the Queen to go to the Enchanted Forest?

But all of that was almost inconsequential because more importantly, this path would utterly destroy any chance Anna had to be given any real power and authority in the future. ‘The Queen for a Day!’ they would call her (as they had surely called  _ her  _ after the Great Freez)e. But at least she hadn’t formally abdicated and had the excuse of her powers going out of control. 

But what would it mean for Anna? What future would she have in Arendelle? What future role  _ could  _ she have that would have her taken seriously?

Every one of these thoughts went through her mind in a flash and she looked her sister squarely in the eye. Perfectly willing to tell her why this would be an incredibly bad idea for her, for Arendelle and for their people.

“If that's what you truly want? Without question or hesitation, yes” she said instead, meaning every single word. 

She’d  _ find _ a way to _ make _ this work. No matter what it took. No matter the effort, the energy, the time,  _ she would find a way and make it happen. _

Anna stared at her for a long moment and then she closed her eyes and she all but slumped against her as if all energy had gone out of her body, Elsa’s arm coming up almost on reflex to grab her as she collapsed into her, her head tucking into her shoulder as she simply lay against her, as if she had just put down the most terrible burden and Elsa bit her lip as she held her there. She abstractly noted the sheer enormity of what she had just agreed to ... but the louder part of her mind _ did not care.  _

Rule had been her burden and she had selfishly dumped it onto her sisters shoulders.

Now she had corrected that error and saved her sister. And to her mild surprise, she felt neither fear nor hesitation at the path she had laid herself onto.

_ Olaf said that love is putting someone else's feelings ahead of your own  _ Elsa recalled as she glanced down at her sister for a moment, still half sitting, half lying against her with her eyes closed and looking almost at peace for the first time since she had returned to Arendelle.  _ If so, I have a  _ great _ deal more to do to prove my love to her is even a fraction of her love for me- _

“It isn’t” Anna said and Elsa’s thoughts crashed to a halt.

“I’m sorry?” Elsa asked, a little confused.

“I  _ don’t  _ want you back on  _ my  _ Throne” Anna explained, continuing to hug her but shifting slightly to tuck in under her chin, her eyes still closed but with a faint smile on her lips. “I mean, you  _ do _ understand the political chaos that would be caused by my abdicating to  _ you  _ after I just  _ took  _ the throne, right?”

“Nightmare is more like it” she admitted slowly, feeling a little lost. “But it will  _ not _ stop me from doing it for you if-” Elsa tried to firmly assure her … only for her sisters eyes to open as she shifted and moved up-

And kissed her gently on the cheek.

Anna didn’t do that terribly often. But the sheer love and gratitude in Anna’s eyes as she pulled back....

“Sorry” Anna muttered, her cheeks flushing red a tad before clearing her throat. “It’s just that … well … watching you being so willing to throw away your freedom,  _ again,  _ for me? To lock yourself back onto a Throne? It …” Anna bit her lip, glancing away and unable to meet her gaze. “I don’t know how I could have thought, even for a  _ minute,  _ that you might have actually chosen ‘your magic’ over me - as if that was a thing you  _ could  _ do anyway” she rolled her eyes. “ _ Gods  _ I’m such an idiot. But that’s not the point. The  _ point  _ is that … well … I  _ want the throne.” _

“You …  _ want  _ the Throne?” Elsa echoed her words carefully for lack of any other response, her mind reeling as if she had been struck. The words were clear enough but … they … they didn’t make sense with what she had seen only this morning with her sister's horrid uncertainty.

“Surprise?” Anna suggested before wincing a little. Looking at her a little sheepish and yet … 

Not any hint of guile or deception at all in those eyes. Under her piercing gaze, not one hint of lies. Just … sheer certainty.

“I mean, I didn’t really  _ realize  _ it until today. During the coronation when the Bishop was asking me to swear my oath. There was just sooo much going on, it was so hard, it was so stressful. Your shoes were so huge to fill and the perfection you were at your coronation-”

“The Kingdom was under an eternal winter by the end of my first day!” Elsa tried to remind her sister but Anna didn’t even slow down.

“-some minor teething issues in your first few days aside” she continued without missing a beat. “I was missing you terribly, trying to push through because I knew you were so happy and at peace in Northuldra-”

“Not exactly true” she muttered but Anna ignored her as she plowed on-

“-that I kept doing whatever I could to make it work. No matter how hard, how exhausting and how terrible some of those days were, I just kept  _ throwing  _ myself at them, sort of hoping it would suddenly all just  _ click  _ and make sense, you know?'' Anna said and Elsa could only nod because that was exactly how she had felt. With far more training and preparation,  _ she  _ had felt like an imposter out of her depth on that day. “And I still wasn’t sure if I could do it but then … um, you know Captain Olsen right?”

“Yes?” Elsa agreed, slightly thrown by the unexpected question. Olsen was a former ship Captain who still went by the title to everyone, but now ran one of the biggest import/export businesses and warehouses in the city. One of the pillars of the community she respected, even if at times he had been a little impertinent with her.

“Well, back during  _ your  _ coronation when I was walking through the city after the Gates were opened. You know, when I met …  _ him _ ” she said, the tone of her word making it rather clear she meant Hans. “Well, I was being a little … uh … excitable?” she admitted, looking faintly embarrassed.

“Singing and dancing at the open gates I suppose?” Elsa couldn’t help but feel a ghost of a smile.

“Trust me, it would have probably  _ not  _ helped your mood that day” her sister dryly assured her and Elsa couldn’t help but snicker slightly, feeling some of the tension drain from the room. “But I didn’t really connect it at the time -having fallen into a boat about then- not until days later when I saw him again. But one of his children, I think Monica? Asked him something about me. If I was the Queen I think and he answered saying that ‘no, she’s just the spare’ - hey, easy there” Anna suddenly cut the story and reached out to take her hand firmly.   
  
Elsa barely heard her sister over a sudden roaring noise in her ears.

_ Just the spare ...  _ **_Just_ ** _ the spare?!- _

“ _ Elsa”  _ Anna’s voice cut through the noise and just like that brought her back feeling a little intimidated by the surge of emotion towards the man who had put her sister down thus. And embarrassed.

“Sorry” she muttered, shaking her head sharply, feeling unease at how easily she had lost her cool - so to speak. “I just …”

“I know” Anna smiled at her and with that smile, everything was okay again. “And I love you for it. But the honest truth is that he wasn’t exactly  _ wrong _ . Back then … I mean,  _ you  _ were the scholar, the athlete, the poet. _ I  _ was just the screw up and didn’t I know it! But after I realized what he said, after The Thaw I mean, I decided I’d find  _ my _ way to be, you know,  _ more  _ than just the spare. And I’ve sort of been sliding around a bit, I suppose, the last few years trying to find that place going from task to task trying to help out-”

“Anna, you’ve been incredible,” Elsa objected. “The people -all our people-  _ love you _ . The problems you’ve solved yourself or brought to my attention that I would have been completely blind to - and the help you’ve given me? If you think my reign was impressive, half of that belongs to  _ you  _ for the confidence and love and help and support you’ve given me…” she said as earnestly as she could, but Anna just shrugged off the praise.

“Eh, maybe, but it still wasn’t  _ enough _ ” Anna shrugged. “Not for Olsen or people like him in the nobility to look at me as a competent Queen now” she pointed out. “And politics is as much  _ perception  _ as it is fact and in their eyes, I’m still just ‘the spare’ without a day job.”

The statement could have  _ -should  _ have- been delivered in an entirely cynical tone Elsa thought, but her sister...the lack of ego or hurt towards those who had so  _ insulted  _ her left her speechless.

“And then … then I saw him today. In the Chapel I mean, when I was about to take my oath, up the back. I mean I was feeling a bit terrified - or gassy, not quite sure which” she said in a way that made it abundantly clear she had  _ not  _ been gassy- “and I was feeling a bit lonely - I think I started to have a teenie tiny bit of understanding of how you must have felt. And you know, sorry about pushing you so hard on that day? Even without the whole Earth shattering secret thing you had going on. But anyway, it was right then, at that moment, that it  _ hit  _ me sis.”

“I hope it didn’t hurt too much?” Elsa replied before a second later, blanching at the horribly inappropriate comment as Anna simply frowned deeply at her in confusion … then burst out laughing. Loudly and for some time, crying once more … but this time, tears of mirth. 

It took some time for Anna to get herself under control, Elsa recognizing that her inadvertent comment was finally letting the tension in the room start to drain away.

“Oh, that’s a good one” she finally managed, shaking her head with a smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I’ve clearly been spending too much time around Honeymaren - she’s almost as fast with your tongue as you are” Elsa muttered, feeling her face flushing for some reason.

“Well good,  _ someone  _ has to keep you in line when you get too highly strung  _ Oh Great Spirit of the Forest” _ she didn’t quite gloat and Elsa had to fight down the instinctive urge to fire a snowball at her sister. “But as I was saying, when I turned back to the Bishop I realized that  _ this was my chance.  _ The chance I’d wanted and waited for all my life” she said, her eyes suddenly distant. “I’ve not really known who I was,  _ what  _ I was really. Not in a way that wasn’t defined by my relationship to you. And now I had a chance to prove who I was and what I could do. To everyone else I guess but even more than that … to  _ me.  _ It was my chance to … to …” Anna struggled, clearly trying to put words to her thoughts-

“To show yourself,” Elsa said softly as it clicked.

“Yes! That’s it,  _ exactly!” _ Anna beamed at her almost bouncing in excitement. “I didn’t  _ want  _ to replace you and I could  _ never  _ surpass you. Maybeeee eventually I duno,  _ equal  _ you if I get a good wind at my back a decade from now?” Anna shrugged off Elsa’s flat look denying she would take anywhere near that long to  _ surpass  _ her. “But I realized that I wanted this chance and I was going to take it. It’s just that … um …” she trailed off, glancing uncertainty at her.

“Yes?” Elsa asked gently, trying to show she could say whatever she wanted.

“I … I need your help - I need you  _ here _ ” Anna admitted in an uncertain, horribly unsure tone, as if terrified she would say ‘no’. “I want to do the best possible job of ruling I can, as  _ me _ . And I want  _ you to have _ your freedom - the freedom you  _ need  _ and  _ deserve  _ to have after so many year spent locking yourself behind closed doors to protect me” she said, no small amount of guilt leaking into her tone before she took a breath and pressed on. “But everything since I came back it’s … it’s just been  _ so much _ . So much to take on. So hard and confusing … I was kinda sorta hoping that you might … stay?” she said in a far too timid look before after a silence that stretched because Elsa didn’t know what to say, Anna jumped in to fill it with desperate urgency. As if she was expecting a denial was desperate to convince her. “I was going to write to you tonight because you couldn’t come today, sure, but if you could spend like a week, a fortnight at the absolute, total,  _ maximum _ , to just sort of … help me … ease into this … please?” she half asked and half pleaded with the look in her eyes of someone who truly wanted this with all her heart … but just felt  _ overwhelmed _ .

It was a look she knew she would have seen at several of the lowest points in her own life. Into which Anna had helped her. Be it by chasing her up a mountain to bring her home, throwing herself in front of a sword for her or even just a few of the late nights in her first months after the Great Thaw when she was still finding her feet and her sister materialized to silence the nightmares that had still haunted her.

And it made Elsa feel … horrid … that Anna actually thought she might say no.

Elsa’s finger one more time landed on her sisters lips and silenced her before she closed her eyes and took a breath in and out.

She had deliberately  _ not  _ come originally to the Coronation to try and stay as far out of sight as possible. To let her sister start her reign as far from her shadow as she could, to let Arendelle see their glorious new Queen for herself. 

She hadn’t bothered to even  _ ask  _ her sister of course, she had simply  _ told  _ her she wouldn’t be able to make it. 

Once again, her errors had compounded themselves as her lack of presence seemed to tell Anna that she had abandoned her. 

But now that she knew the damage she had done … she could finally begin to correct it.

“My not being here by your side today was a mistake - and an insult to you and Arendelle” Elsa observed quietly as she removed her finger. “Even Ahtohallan knew it” she added, her sisters gaze turning curious at that and Elsa swallowed before pushing herself forward, bound to tell the truth to her sister. “This morning Anna. It  _ called  _ me again and I went there…” she hesitated for a moment to put her thoughts into words. 

To explain. 

“And it showed me the truth.”

Anna mumbled something under her breath to that, that Elsa didn’t quite catch before she cleared her throat, looking slightly abashed.

“And what exactly is this truth?” she asked, looking like she was bracing herself for something unpleasant and Elsa chided herself for acting so ominously.

“The truth that  _ you  _ were  _ right  _ all along'' she explained, offering a small smile, reaching down to take one of her sisters hands into her own, squeezing gently to emphasise her point. “You were  _ supposed _ to be there with me when I reached Ahtohallan. You were  _ supposed  _ to have crossed the Dark Sea with me _.  _ Perhaps after I tamed the Nokk I was supposed to come back to get you and bring you with me? I do not know. Only that we each had parts to play in earning the Spirits allegiance, just like you did with the Earth Giants but the end of that road was in Ahtohallan for  _ both  _ of us … and you still need to go there to complete this path.”

“But … I’m just … me” Anna said, sounding confused.

The look Elsa shot at her on pure reflex then made Anna actually flinch back slightly as Elsa barely managed to avoid an utterly irrational attack against Anna for putting down Anna like she attacked  _ anyone  _ who put down her sister.

Even if it  _ was  _ her sister doing it.

_ Especially  _ if it was her sister doing it.

“You’re far more than ‘just me’” Elsa let her tone make that clear, again, before pushing on. “But to get to my point; Ahtohallan - and Grand Pabby- helped guide me in starting to understand a bit more about the two of us. He made it clear that I was called today because the Fifth Spirit was out of balance. In _distress_ \- and that _I_ was the cause of that distress to the other half of the Fifth Spirit … to _you_ Anna. It showed me just how much I had hurt you with my choices and the damage I was still doing as even while I slept soundly in the Enchanted Forest without any concern, you-” she said before suddenly cutting herself off as she realized what she was about to say.

Too late though because her sister wasn’t an idiot.

“Ahtohallan … it knew I was having nightmares... ” Anna asked in a low tone and Elsa swallowed.

“Yes” Elsa said gently as she could, feeling a little grotesque at the humiliating invasion of privacy the admission represented to her sister. “And that you were second guessing yourself and stupidly trying to compare yourself to me instead of you or thinking that people like the Count of Helden were picking on you because you were not me, instead just because he’s an complete unrepentant  _ asshole-” _

“Elsa!” Anna almost choked, her eyes bulging. “You … did  _ you  _ just-”

“Swear? No, because he  _ is  _ an asshole so by definition I am simply describing him as he is” Elsa deflected without the slightest hesitation earning her a look of shock and disbelief with a jaw hanging open.

It  _ was _ the first time Elsa had ever sworn in front of her sister and it felt oddly liberating to do so.

So much so she made a note to _not_ do it again, it really felt like something that could be habit forming.

“But” Elsa continued with a deep breath, “and forgive me by intrusions, but I  _ also  _ got to see you at your most incredible,  _ amazing _ , selfless best thanks to Ahtohallan” she said without thinking, the words flowing from somewhere inside herself. “Ahtohallan made it clear to me that you were not simply supposed to be with me when I first arrived there, but that you had your own part to play in this that is still incomplete. That it is your birthright as much as it is mine.”

“But  _ I _ don’t have any magic. What could it possibly want with me?”   
  
“As mother loved to say'' Elsa smiled wryly, “only Ahtohallan knows. And when it is time, I will walk with you into Ahtohallan and stand by your side as you find out. But to get back to your question Anna. Ahtohallan made it  _ incredibly  _ clear that my task, my role going forward is just as much about helping  _ you _ as doing anything else. Which means, Anna, I promise you, that  _ I will be here for you for as long as you need me to be, however you need me to be, for whatever you need me to do.  _ If that is days, weeks, months, years? Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes now, whatever it takes in the future” she said, gently moving her sister's hand she still held to place it against her own chest, over her own heart. “This I swear to you as one half of the Fifth Spirit to the other half … but more than that, I promise it as your sister.”

Anna stared at her for a long, long moment. Her eyes boring into hers and seeming almost to shine a brilliant light into every part of her soul and being; searching for any hint that she did not mean what she said.

Elsa felt almost naked under the gaze but she held herself exposed unflinchingly, letting her sister's gaze burn into her and study every part of her for even the slightest hint of deception, conscious or unconscious for long heartbeats of silent time.

Until finally Anna closed her eyes and moved her hand off Elsa’s chest and brought it up with her other hand to ever so gently cradle her face, leaning in to gently kiss her forehead before leaning into a hug, her eyes closed as she simply relaxed against her.

“Thank you Elsa” she whispered and said no more as she held her firmly in her arms, gently stroking her sister's loose hair.

It was several minutes before Elsa realized Anna had fallen asleep in her arms and as she had done more than once in the last few years, she gently and carefully maneuvered her into her bed and tucked her in. 

“Sleep my Queen, my spirit, my sister” she whispered and Anna made a murmured noise in her throat, seeming to absently be reaching and twisting to the side and silently, Elsa backed away to the door and with a gesture of her hand, the candles in the room doused, leaving only the smouldering remains of the fire to light the room as she reached the door, silently opening it to find Kristoff standing anxiously outside.

“Is she okay?” he asked immediately in a whisper and Elsa nodded firmly.

“She’s fine Kristoff, just exhausted. The two of us got … well, we got a  _ lot  _ off each other's chests. In a good way” Elsa assured him.

“You look exhausted yourself” he said, looking at her carefully, his face focusing in with genuine concern for her. “Are  _ you  _ okay Elsa? I know this has been a wild day for you as well” 

Elsa couldn't help but be touched once more by his concern for her.

“I feel much better now than when I arrived, as hard as that was” she admitted to him. “I think the two of us are going to be just fine. But right now, she needs you more than she needs me, I think” she said, glancing back into the room where Anna seemed to be vaguely visible on her bed trying to find the person she clearly expected to be beside her in her dreams. 

It hit her hard. In a good way.

It was love she realized as she watched her sisters lazy searching. She loved Anna.  _ Kristoff  _ loved Anna.

It wasn’t a competition - Anna had so much love, far more than anyone else could possibly absorb, that it was utterly pointless to think one had to be in competition for it. 

He loved her sister with just as much devotion as she did. He just loved her … differently.

But a  _ good  _ differently.

“Just make sure you get to bed yourself now” he didn’t  _ exactly  _ order her, but it was clear he wasn’t simply offering a suggestion. “I’d rather not see you come back to start burning the midnight oil tonight.”

“As you say, my Lord Prince-Consort” she noted with a slightly exaggerated bow and Kristoff cringed at that.

“Don’t remind me” he muttered and Elsa felt a pang as she suddenly realized, belatedly, that Anna’s ascension had also indisputably changed  _ his  _ life in a major way. He had gone from being the commoner boyfriend of the Heir Presumptive to the engaged man to the Queen of Arendelle.

But Kristoff clearly saw the expression on her face and his face melted into something much more kind.

“Princess or Queen - it makes no difference Elsa” he told her directly and simply, but with an unshakable conviction. “So long as she lets me stay by her side because for some crazy reason she cares about some ice harvester from the mountains, it doesn’t  _ matter _ ‘what’ she is, because of  _ who _ she is. The most incredible woman in the world-”

“Kristoff, I love you” she said on the spot, her voice thick in her throat … and then froze as she noticed his eyes widening and suddenly thought he might have taken that the wrong way!

“No! I mean,  _ yes _ , but - like, you know, as, as uh, a brother in law!” she hurried to try and explain until she saw the look on his face twist from shock to amusement to genuine warmth and she let her sudden frantic words trail off, feeling a tad silly at her overreaction.

“I know Elsa, I know” he assured her before taking a deep breath. “And … I love you too” he replied, scratching his head a little nervously and hiding behind that gruff mountain man exterior as if it was nothing to say.

His flushed face however and terribly shy and vulnerable body language said something else entirely and it made Elsa swallow past the lump in her throat. “I mean” he hastened to add, as if embarrassed by his admission, “I’ve never had a little sister to watch out for” he suggested.

“You’re a year and a half younger than me” she pointed out dryly, playing along to let the man keep his dignity.

“Yeah but you’re just so  _ tiny _ ” he observed in a deadpan tone as he loomed over her … and then there was a snickering sound as his mask started to slip which caused  _ her  _ to start to giggle before the two of them had to put their hands to their mouths to try and muffle the noise, before Elsa rolled her eyes and walked back into the room, to retrieve her little crown. Kristoff followed, kicking off his slippers and slipping into the large bed next to her sister. Elsa retreated swiftly from the room but saw the way Anna’s lazily questing shape under the covers almost at once latched onto him and with a content noise that told Elsa her sister was in the best of hands, she all but wrapped herself around him as she shut the door behind herself.

Then with a nod, she turned to head for her room down the hall, pleased to find as she entered it, that the fireplace and candles had been lit and the bed turned down.

Ignoring the bed, she walked to her desk and found, as she had requested, a copy of her sister's schedule for tomorrow, the week's major decisions pending her sister's attention and the outstanding issues and last council meetings minutes.

She  _ would  _ as Kristfoff had ordered her, get to bed … in time.

_ First _ , she was going to make sure that her sister was going to hit the ground running. 

Drawing a fresh sheet of paper and letting her mind fall back into long familiar patterns, she got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, sorry about the delay! Been splitting my attention here and there! 
> 
> Please don't hesitate to give me feedback. I'm not 100% happy with this chapter as I feel Elsa does a lot of repetitive angst, but she's now more or less gotten it out of her system so we can move forward. 
> 
> Next chapter: We'll have the first months of Anna's reign as she settles in to great success even with a few hickups initially, but no more or less than you'd expect from any new Queen taking the throne. And then, we turn fully to the question of what DOES Ahtohallan want from Anna exactly?
> 
> To answer that, we'll be switching POVs now from Elsa to Anna for the second half of this story. I did have Olaf in an earlier draft of this but decided in the end to take him out of this chapter, it both stretched an already quite long chapter and didn't exactly fit. But I promise you'll be seeing him next chapter. And Sven of course! As well as checking in on the Northuldrans to place emphasis on the fact that Elsa AND Anna are members of the tribe. And perhaps get a bit of a glance at how Northuldra culture and society is changing with the mist down, so much more space to run around in and the stunning sky and stars to live with.
> 
> Plus an adorable Fire Spirit who is now far less of a firebug as it were.
> 
> The length was a bit extreme, really I should divide this story from 4 single chapters to 16 smaller ones. I might go back tomorrow and do that if its too much. Or a different number, I might be giving too much thought to the appearance of symmetry with the equal chapters for each character that I need to calm down a little and just tell the story...

**Author's Note:**

> So. Suffice to say while I enjoyed Frozen II, I felt there were major narrative and character issues threaded through it from the beginning. I think Jennifer Lee, the lead writer, even out and out said that when they started this, they didn't see Elsa as 'fitting into a box'. That she was supposed to be 'Free' and they saw Anna ascending to the Throne as a 'natural' thing. 
> 
> And if they had put the effort into that character wise, it might have even worked ... despite the fact that it would seem to completely undercut the ending of Frozen I and the two Frozen specials that showed not only had Elsa learned to accept all the aspects of herself and that everyone accepted her for who she was, but also that she was genuinely happy and content with who she was and where she was. It isn't to say that things don't change and people don't change, but it was incredibly jarring the way the second film seemed to walk in the footsteps of the first and have Elsa backslide so horribly at every crisis point. It also turned Kristoff into a 1D joke that existed only to keep failing miserably to propose to Anna and then literally was written out of half the film because the writers were utterly clueless what to DO with him and give him any agency. It did some work to show Anna stepping up to the plate, but nowhere near enough and then at the end, has in the last six or seven minutes, an incredibly poorly rushed ending to say 'And then suddenly Elsa decided that her responsibilities and people meant nothing to HER and she could neatly sidestep by dumping it all on her sister before running off to the Enchanted Forest for ... reasons'. 
> 
> I mean, I found the 'A Bridge has two sides - and Mother has two Daughters' line *incredibly* arrogant from Elsa in the way that she seemingly defines she and her sister as equals ... then proceeds to frame it in a way that REALLY makes it clear that Elsa really thinks that SHE is the Fifth spirit and that 'Human Anna's' entire existence (seemingly framing and explicitly rejecting Elsa has human oddly enough) seems to revolve around neatly providing a means for her to walk out on everything and apparently run away from the only home and life she has ever known for ... reasons. That are still undefined. Making me wonder if Ahtohallan did something weird to her brain. 
> 
> Because the logical 'bridge' argument is that ELSA is of course both Human AND Spirit and thus she is the totality of the bridge, making Anna superfluous to the entire argument. Which is clearly the truth here because the writers just wanted a way to force Elsa to walk away from Arendelle and put Anna into a Queen dress to sell more accessories or something. And you know, Disney IS a product company and I don't have a problem with them being one! Just that they could have gotten to the same ending a much better way.  
> And we're not even getting started on the bigger questions, like what Anna would feel about her sister saying she was going to leave her (I mean its not like Anna could POSSIBLY have any abandonment issues or anything that may have just been incredibly triggered by Olaf and Elsa dying on her or anything), Elsa constantly breaking her word throughout the movie over and over and OVER and treating Anna like an inconvenience or like she was still a little child (like she treated her responsibilities, great message there Disney!) unable to handle issues (and yet you made her Queen, good one Elsa!)
> 
> It's really a shame because I think that there WAS scope to still tell the same story but have it worked just a little differently to avoid those issues, not really requiring that much work. 
> 
> But rather than rewrite canon (and I had a lot of ideas on how to rework Frozen II while keeping the story as close as possible, but I'm sure a lot of other people did too) I decided instead to take my issues and run with them. To pick up where Frozen II ended, take all the problems I had with the story, flesh them out and build a story around the consequences of those issues and solving them.
> 
> Think of this as something of ... I suppose an extended coda? To brush off the gloss of the far too artificial 'and they lived happily ever after', confront the actual issues and resolve them, THEN we have the happy ending. 
> 
> Thanks for your time and thanks for reading!


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